Comments on: Firing blanks

By: Tamanawis · The birds and the trees

Tamanawis · The birds and the trees — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:20:27 +0000

[...] than I’d care to admit, and that includes on these pages (funnily enough, there’s a remarkable correlation between such phrases and my trips out for [...]

By: Tamanawis — Bang for your buck

Tamanawis — Bang for your buck — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:31:33 +0000

[...] single fish. He came in after both my brother and I had tried the pool twice each, and immediately caught a lovely fish. We were all fishing heavy nymphs, but he was a long way ahead of us in terms of really fishing the [...]

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 07:02:00 +0000

I can’t tell you how it gladdens my heart to hear that I’m not the only one to suffer this fate.

Borders on masochism doesn’t it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:56:00 +0000

Despite all of these statistics, at least yours don't include the statistic: "Travelled 400 miles round trip for zero fish."

It's always the truttas which cooperate, even in winter.

At least I learnt one valuable lesson from all this blanking: Never believe ANY of the advice you give, nor the river-hype spouted about such and such a river and all the millions of greyling there.

Nice swan picture anyway. There was a lot of scenery to look at whilst failing at the fishing-lark.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:10:00 +0000

Thanks for the comments chaps.

I wonder the same thing myself Alex. It’s bizzare yet still we fish.

Olli, I actually think I lost more flies than that. But anyway, in general the difference this year has been the strength of my nylon, up to 6.5lb. This seriously reduces the number of lost flies. I’m also an expert at getting out of snags (it happens so much).

As for depth, well I’m absolutely sure we were fishing deep enough. In fact, on one day a little theory was proposed which made us think we were fishing TOO deep. There was a bit of a midge hatch, and the only fish, caught by my pal, came to the top dropper… makes you wonder.

Fortunately, it wasn’t The Rod. But it was my ‘speciality’ grayling rod which has yet to catch a fish..

By: opax

opax — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:30:00 +0000

Great post Mike. Two notes:

- spent 20 hours chucking bombs into icy rivers
- lost 11 flies

Are you fishing deep enough? Lost rate could/should be higher.

broken the tip of 1 rod (a particularly proud moment)

Not the rod!??!?

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:07:00 +0000

"searing hot curry at our favourite joint"

"spent 5 hours thawing out frozen feet"

"Finding grayling in winter can be soul-destroyingly difficult"

"It's supposed to have loads of grayling."

Isn't it amazing how a simple, noble pleasure pursuit like angling can force upon us such extremes of experience and emotion.

I admire your tenacity, Mike. Hopefully next month the fishing gods will smile on you once more!

Alex