Empty Handed

Back to Farletonview to try and finally christen that new rod. The first hour was spent stalking fish in the margins along the West bank, but they simply weren’t interested, got a few follows but nothing more. At 4pm, as forecast, the wind really picked up and the rain started. I switched to a buzzer on the point and an olive snatcher on a dropper and started to fish along the North shore, working into the wind coming out of the East, and heading for the more comfortable wind-at-your-back and sheltered Eastern shore. Had a couple of slashy rises at the snatcher as it skittered through the wave, but no fish.

At last on the Eastern shore, finally got a fish on to a black and green buzzer fished ultra-slow back up wind, and a chance to see how my new 5# outfit handles herself. Superb, and I think this was a decent blue, but after a fairly lengthy fight, the fish making several looong runs (giving me a chance to test the drag on the G-Lite reel), and just as I was getting its head up, the fish came off. Hey ho. I didn’t get a good look at the fish, so I really don’t know if it was a big one, a strong one or just a ‘normal’ one which seemed bigger/stronger because I’m not used to the 5 weight.

No more takes to buzzer for a while and no takes on the various surface flies I tried (emergers, mainly) so I switched to the wonder fly and started getting hits immediately, first and second cast, 3, 4, 5 - but I just couldn’t hook up. Checked the fly and sharpened the hook and carried on - managed another couple of hits with the same result and then they just stopped. Word had got around - leave caddis off the menu, boys, they fight back.

Coming up to the end of my 3 hour ticket now, so a last cast I think - when CRACK! the rod snapped. Just snapped as I completed a forward stroke and fell in the water.

Wtf?

So, there’s a very clean break in the 3rd section above the butt. Jesus, what a horrible sound, what an awful feeling!

Lucky I was just about to wrap it up anyway. Lucky it didn’t break when I was playing that fish. I’ve been trying to think if it got a knock at anytime, but I can’t think that it has.

So, not having much luck with this new rod, on the whole…

Now to try out the Grey’s Repairs and Warrenty Scheme, see how that goes.

Saturday 5th May 2007 - Farletonview.

So, this is rapidly becoming a bank-holiday only blog, by the look of things. Anyway, this has been the first chance I’ve had to get out and christen my new Grey’s Missionary 5wt, and I decided to take it up to Farletonview for a bash, hoping for a bit of surface action.

The rod came with one of the Missionary kits - so I got a 9′ 5wt in 7 pieces, no less, plus the smallest of the now-defunct G-Lite reels - they’ve obviously still got some stock of these, I believe they’ve now been replaced by the G-Tec for 1997 - and a #5 WFF Platinum fly line in Heron Grey (off-white). The rod is pretty fast and tippy compared to my Platinum XD’s, and even the Grey’s website intimates that it’s not an easy rod to use, saying “The seven-piece has a slightly faster action of the two, whilst the five-piece is a little easier to use.”, so I was a little dubious about it when I ordered it, particularly when you throw into the mix that it’s also lighter than my usual set up, I usually use 6wt. Would I be able to cast it at all? Would I be able to cast it a useful distance, after all I’m not a great distance caster anyway!? Well, it turns out not to be too bad - the timing is waaay different to my XD’s, and I found myself hitting tailing loops a few times, but when I got the timing right, it was just fine. It’ll take me a while to get used to, but I like the lighter set-up, it’s noticably quieter on and in the water, and I think I’ll like it a lot when I get used to it. The Grey’s line is nice too, good colour for visibility and very supple with barely any line memory even on the first outing. My only criticism is that it doesn’t float as high as I’d like at the tip, and fishing static for any length of time saw the front few yards pretty much submerged. I can probably fix this with some mucilin, I guess.

Assembling the rod is no chore either, really. I loved the idea of a travel rod for convenience of storage and transport, obviously, but thought it might end up being a right pain in the arse to assemble. It realy isn’t a problem, and there are dots on the blank to help line up the rings, something which I don’t know why we don’t have on all multi-section rods, really; I’d find it useful on my 3 piece rods as well as this 7 piece.

None of my new fancy tackle helped much, though, and, as you can probably guess from the title, I wasn’t able to test the rod fully. Ho hum. I missed a lovely take to a shipman’s within a few casts of starting, and had a few other follows later on, but, other than that I didn’t trouble the trout one bit.

I’m sure Stuart’s real name is Jonah - I only ever struggle when he comes. He blanked, too, btw.