Category — Thoughts

We walk with hope
to the blue moored boat
And cast a fly
across the evening summersky

Do you ever feel like this when you’re fishing? I’ve always wanted to be able to fly.. hard to imagine the freedom. Sometimes I think it’s possible to get pretty close with a fly rod. All that is needed is the flow, the light and a mind in the present and the far.

Yes, today I am feeling pretentious…

Tonight I was in the unusual situation of having fished my favourite river for the previous two evenings (those reports are on the way…) The fishing had gotten noticeably better between the first and second sessions, and my hopes began to dance ever more enthusiastically as I arrived to find BWO’s and sedges cavorting over the water.

I rigged up a new fly, the CDC loopwing emerger. I tie this fly on a curved hook (Kamasan B100) and reckon it looks about as good as any emerger I’ve come across. It’s sits kind of like a DHE, but with better consistency. It also has a really nice, messy thorax which seems to suggest drowned wings and such mischief. After this evening’s festivities it will find a permanent place in a corner of my fly box. Up to the first pool, and after 10 minutes of watching a nice fish showed in a swirling run near the pool’s neck. Ten or fifteen fruitless casts followed before a final ‘chuck and chance’ presentation brought a lovely boil of a rise and one of the best trout I’ve had this season. Fighting fit and with the suggestion of a kype, he was a cracking way to start things off.

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A summer’s evening, under the trees. The flow flows by and carries the light. It carries an angler’s hope as well, little olives and dancing sedges.

It’s July. It’s one of the best times of the year. You can fish the rivers until the soft red sky turns midnight blue. The trout rise slowly at 7 and build to a gloopy frenzy by 9 or 10. The big hope is a BWO spinner fall followed by the grand summer sedges.

The evening starts with a prospective F-fly, perhaps a size 16. It’s got a little dusting of hare’s mask over a red thread body. Carefully flicking the 3 weight, all the good foam lines are covered. The sporadic rises of early evening slowly give way to the steady sipping of trout quietly feasting on spinners trapped in the surface. Time for the polypropylene sherry spinner, tied on a size 16 or 18 hook. It’s amazing how close the trout will let an angler wade: they only ask for quiet steps and gentle butterfly casts.

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There’s something strangely voyeuristic about losing your hair. It’s like watching a car crash in extremely slow motion. You know what’s coming, and it’s not pleasant, but it is somewhat fascinating. For a time you quietly pretend it’s not happening, as if looking away will solve the problem. But gradually, as the cars get closer and the sink gets increasingly clogged, it’s harder and harder to ignore.

Going au naturel when young is perhaps the cruelest way. The teenage years are only just gone, and finally you’re getting a little more comfortable with the carcass God gave you. Every now and then you notice what it’s like to be an ‘adult’. Feelings of responsibility, guilt and an increasing desire to go fishing 24/7. You realise time does move on, some things do change and you do grow slowly older.

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Fishing mojo has been on my mind lately. In terms of fish caught I’ve had a terrible start to the season. I’ve fished incredibly passively, expecting fish to throw themselves at my line. This seems like the anti-thesis of fly fishing: you should have to hunt down the trout and earn their takes. It’s all about the mind of course. Sometimes, and it pains me to say it, the mind is not right for fishing.

Yesterday I headed down to a favourite spot hoping to dig deep and find some mojo. I took the unusual step of stringing up my 8′ 3 weight rod instead of the shotgun Sage. My elbow has basically been buggered by my casting practice this winter so light rods are now mandatory. It’s nice to find blessings in every curse, and rediscovering a love of fishing light is surly a worthy blessing from my painful curse. It’s a totally different feeling from using the 5 weight, one where the rod seems much more like an extension of the arm and the casts quietly swish past with only a thought. I actually enjoyed fishing again, and came pretty close to the place on several occasions.

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1) Practice casting so much that you bugger up your elbow.
2) Die.
3) Get married.
4) Practice casting so much that you bugger up your elbow.
5) Get constipation from too much curry. Normally, people associate loose bowels with too much curry. These people simply haven’t eaten enough. Keep going, I’ll see you there.

The new season bug has finally hit. It’s been a long five months away from my friend the trout and my arch enemy the grayling has been a tortuous winter companion. I really don’t understand the total and utter failure with the grayling this winter. It has certainly not come through a lack of time, effort or frozen testicles. All of these things have been offered to the Lady with humble servitude but it seems She has been occupied elsewhere.

Well, I’ve arrived at a mental service station and before long it’ll be back along the road to trout city. It’s that time of year where opening day creeps over the dashboard and into view. I’ve been thinking about what the new season might hold and between fits of flashbacks from previous years a few new thoughts have crystallised.

This is going to be the year of the Spey. Last season a pal of mine called Ally taught me how to roll cast properly and it soon became a critical part of my fishing arsenal. Having said that I almost never use a standard roll cast, not with groovy alternatives like the snake roll and the double Spey. These days I can Spey cast almost as far as I can overhead cast, which either means I’m an absolute god of casting or my overhead needs work. Spey casting is unbeatable for fishing spiders and streamers across and down, and dry flies in tight corners. One of the great benefits is the lack of turbo-fish-spooking as caused by overhead flailing.

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Last night I finished reading a book. I’m not a particularly fast reader, so this was a relatively rare event and worthy of mention. Rather more worthy of mention however was the book itself. Isolation Shepherd by Iain R. Thomson is now among my favourite books. It’s a wonderfully simple premise: the life and times of a shepherding family who lived in one of the most remote and beautiful glens in all of Scotland. From Strathfarrar in the east, up the great expanse of Loch Monar and into the upper reaches at Strathmore, this is a book set in the finest of Scottish landscapes. Great mountains lie all around. The fantastically remote Sgurr na Lapaich and An Riabhachan to the south, Sgurr a’Chaorachain to the north and the Bowman’s Pass to the west are just a few of the many fine hills and valleys. There are rivers and lochs as well. Monar itself, the Gead lochs to the south west and the myriad streams and burns running off the peaks. A little piece of isolated perfection nestled into the far north west of this island.

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