Empty Handed

Decided to give Borwick Waters a go for a couple of hours this morning. I’d previously told myself that I wasn’t going back there until well into Spring or even Summer, when the conditions for catching some coarse fish on the fly were more favourable, but, with the weather being so nice, fancied a little experiment to see if I could tempt anything with some deep bloodworm and buzzer patterns.

Arrived at the water for just before 10 and started straight off over in the corner (Griffish), with a bloodworm pattern under a yarn indicator. Tried several other flies, such as white latex grubs (to imitate a maggot?) and various sizes and shades of buzzer, but, after an hour, it was pretty clear nothing was going to happen for me here. So I walked the 5 yards over the road to Gattenby to see if any of the Crucians would play. Same tactics, same result.

Interestingly, there did appear to be several fish feeding. That’s if I’m right about the feeding bubbles that Crucians give off. There were several patches of these moving around the pool. Obviously, I concentrated on these, and I fancied I saw a bit of a take at one point, but didn’t connect with anything. The bubbles were probably marsh gas and the take just the indicator settling, but it kept me interested for an hour…

In my defence, I didn’t really expect to catch anything, and just thought it would be nice to be at the bankside on such a glorious (sunny, crisp and still) day, and to keep my casting hand in. Another plus, I finally gave my ‘new’ intermediate line a swim. It’s been waiting for some use since I got it ages ago and I tried it out for the last ten minutes today, partly because I’ve been meaning to for ages but mainly in anticipation of a planned trip to Stocks Reservoir on the opening weekend (24th Feb), where I think it will be useful. I didn’t want to get there, only to find it floating like a cork, or something. It doesn’t. It sinks like a stone. I thought it was a medium intermediate, but it seems pretty fast to me. Mind you, I’ve only ever fished floating lines before, any sink will seem fast to me!

So, I packed up and was off again by 12. Nipped over to Hallmore Fishery just up the road to have a look at the returns book. Seems like a few are coming out of there again, now, and there are people visiting regularly. Most seem to be catching 1 or 2, with the odd 6 and 8-er mixed in, so looks like it might be worth a visit next weekend, if the weather is reasonable. Otherwise, I’ll stick to the golf.

Arrived at the fishery at around 10am and set up with the usual 2 fly rig, skinny olive buzzer on the point with a red holo Diawl Bach on the dropper, this time.

Long story short, hacked around with the usual suspects for several depressing hours – various buzzers, nymphs and the usually reliable shipman’s, with and without retrieving, with and without a bung, but without a fish. In fact, I didn’t even get a take, as far as I know.

Totally overstayed in an attempt to get something on, which just made it worse. I’d originally planned to leave around 1 at the latest, but ended up staying ’til after 2. Depressing.

Weather conditions were pretty bad, though. No rain, but a steady and strong wind chopped up the lake making presentation and bite detection difficult to impossible, made casting awkward to dangerous and dragged the temperature down with the chill factor. Saw a couple of fish come out to sunk line tactics (Cat’s Whisker in at least one case, according to the catch return of one guy who finished before I did).

The only thing I got out of the day was to try out not one but two new items of kit. Item one was not really a specific fishing item, but was the new Thermos flask I got for Xmas, so I had a cup of Bovril in the ‘Fisherman’s Shelter’ at around 12.30, and I carried the flask in the second item, my new Fishpond backpack/vest pack. This is the ‘Glacier’ vest pack, no longer listed on the Fishpond site. It seems pretty good, but I’m a bit disappointed with the size, really. I struggled to get my waterproofs and the flask in comfortably, and there would be little or no room for, say, a sandwich box or, indeed, any tackle in addition. I’d hoped that the backpack part would be pretty spacious as I was hoping to do a bit of hiking and fishing later this year, but I’d struggle to fit food, drink, clothing and sufficient tackle (reels being the main problem) for a full day in this bag, contrary to Fishpond marketing. Disappointing also is the rod tube system. This allows you to strap two rod tubes alongside the backpack, but the attachment to hold the base of the tube is like a cup holder, in effect, and sits level with the bottom of the pack. This means that this is where the bottom of the rod tube also sits, so a tube much longer than the height of the backpack would be quite awkward to carry. I trialled this with a rod tube containing my 9′6 4 piece rod, which is pretty short really, and this was manageable (I wouldn’t normally have bothered carrying this around with me, of course), but anything longer would be tricky. This means all of my other rods! I’ll have to try this, but I think they’d make the whole pack too top heavy, and would possibly flip themselves out as well. Maybe not, I’ll give it a trial sometime. This may be going back on eBay, though. The quality is excellent, I think I need something bigger, though. I shouldn’t think I would buy another such pack without seeing it first!

Anyway, in conclusion, winter fly fishing really sucks unless the weather is right, and I need a sinking line. I think I’m going to sack off the fishing unless the weather is kind, and spend the time with the family, or possibly on a little golf! I’d much rather do that than spend several freezing hours joylessly dragging a Cat’s Whisker back along the bottom of a lake with more white horses than Morecambe Bay…

From Chris McCully:

These roach rise at dawn and dusk, even in these depths of the year. What they’re rising to, here in December, is a bit of a mystery, though it must, surely, be tiny midge pupae. In any sort of calm weather you see the fish topping, dawn and dusk, hard by the tram-stop…fish up to a massive 8 or 9 inches long.

This afternoon, as a change from working and writing (manic laughter in distance; pig flies past…) I spent an hour over these little scraps as the day steepened into night. Artificial was a size 16 or 18 Witch (an old grayling pattern) fished just sub-surface. I watched the leader-end for takes – an edge of nylon cutting through the reflections of city neon.

Read the rest and see the cool photo of the flies he used at his web log. Fly fishing for Coarse fish is one of my interests, too. See my group on Flickr and all my own Coarse Fish on the Fly shots.

Managed to get out for what is hopefully becoming my “traditional” new years day fishing excursion today. As per last year, it was to Forrest Hills. I don’t frequent this place quite so much as I used to do, since the prices went up and the stocking went down, or, at least, not so often. These days it costs practically the same as fishing Bank House, and the stamp of fish isn’t as good. That said, however, I do seem to catch quite as many here as at Bank House, so I probably shouldn’t grumble… The main benefit is that it is open. The honesty box approach is great for fishing out of hours, so to speak.

The weather wasn’t quite as comfortable as last year, today. It was breezy to begin with (I arrived at a very leisurely 10am, and was the first to arrive for the day – no golfers had turned out yet, either), building to very breezy later. That pond was as choppy as Morecambe Bay. This helped to make it very chilly. Later, it tried a bit of rain, too. I started off with a PTN on the point and a black spider on the dropper (the spider being the star of the day this time last year) and fished buzzer style, swinging them round in the wind. Nothing. I switched banks to get the wind over my left shoulder and worked through buzzers, nymphs, bloodworm etc. Nothing. I tried a black and green lure, but unsurprisingly got nothing – I’m not well equipped for lure fishing and fishing this unweighted lure on a floater in that wave was probably a waste of time. Well, it definitely was a waste of time!

I’d seen a few swirls and splashes, and the occasional flattened wave which could have been a fish at the surface, so I tried a ginger shipmans, and, keeping a short line, plied the marginal weedbeds for a while. This felt right, and I was confident. Sure enough, a fish moved to my fly, but came short – I saw the wave flatten and a golden flank, it was surely a fish, but it didn’t take and several more casts didn’t bring it back.

By this time (12, 12.30?) I was cold and thinking about jacking, since I was due at the ‘in-laws’ for lunch by about 2, but thought I’d move down to the windward end of the lake for a while. I’d noticed some fish moving, and, besides, it was more sheltered and the water was calmer. I tried a buzzer under a bung for a bit, but NOTHING. Then, when I was really running out of time, I spotted a few more rises quite nearby, and whacked on a black shipmans, well greased because even here it was quite choppy. Leaving the bung on (to help keep tabs on the fly) I cast out to near where the fish were moving. Not so many casts later, a proper take, but I arranged for the fly to be removed from the fish’s mouth at high speed before it ever grabbed it… That was the bung’s fault (probably) so that came off. Really running low on time now, so a change of direction, casting back and into the wind this time… A take, within moments of the fly alighting. No mistake this time, giving it a few moments to turn and into the first fish of the year, a rainbow of about, ooh, 1 3/4 lbs, or so. Very welcome. I netted and released it and packed up the rod, headed for the car and, as I drove away, the rains came down. Perfect timing.

Farleton. 10.15 – 15.15 on the ticket (£9.50 sport ticket). Cool, dry, mostly sunny and still to very light winds. No fish, but witnessed a helicopter rescue from the summit of Ingleborough.

I went fishing today, to Wych Elm fly fishery. Nothing particularly unusual about this, I go fly fishing reasonably regularly and Wych Elm is one of the 3 or 4 places I usually go. This afternoon was slightly unusual though, in that I did quite well.

Veronica and the kids had gone out for the afternoon to a kid’s party, so I was able to slope off and have a good half-day at it – typically, I only go fishing for a few hours at a time, coz I feel guilty spending too long away from the family, and also, I want to spend time with the family. The problem with fishing, rather like golf, is that it really drains time, amd time is always in pretty short supply for me. Anyway, V and the kids were going to be out all afternoon and into the evening anyway, so, no reason to rush back.

I’d planned this out in my head a few days ago, knowing I’d have a window this afternoon, and, typically, the weather turned out to be pretty far from ideal. It didn’t really look much like rain, but it was very windy, and that makes fly casting awkward and downright dangerous at times. Anyway, sod it, I’d already decided I was going to go whatever the weather was doing.

So, I started fishing around 2, and didn’t manage anything for the first hour or so. As per usual, other people seemed to be catching plenty. Hey ho. After about an hour and a half, the guy who’d been fishing diagonally opposite from me packed up his kit and wandered back around my way. I hadn’t seem him catch anything (other than some trees) whilst I’d been there. He wandered over and asked how I was getting on, and we had the usual anglers conversation that ensues from these encounters – what had I been trying? Buzzers and nymphs, mainly. How about you? Oh, I had 4 out this morning on this little white thing – he showed me a little white thing (no, it wasn’t his cock – that was massive). It was like a little white nymph with a lime piece at the head, probably size 12. Oh, right, I said (I was tying on a green and black buzzer at the time), I might have something like that. You can have this one if you like. Oh, well thank you very much, I will, that’s most generous of you, I’ll give it a try in a bit, how did you fish it> Dead slow, static retrieve. Nice one, thanks again. You’re welcome. And, as he was leaving (he wandered down to the fishing hut to fill in the returns book after that conversation, and then passed me again on his way out), tight lines! Tight lines! He actually said, tight lines! Cool.

So, I tried my green buzzer for a bit, and then tried my benefactor’s donation. Well, I didn’t get a fish first cast, or anything, but I did get my first only a few casts later. I then went on to take 5 more on that little white thing in fairly short order (over, maybe, an hour and a half). A couple of these were taken by using the bob fly I’d tied on (a loch ordie) as an indicator – something I’ve never succeeded at before, so I was very pleased with that, as there were 2 fish I probably wouldn’t have taken if it weren’t for that bob fly. Some of those fish were of a good size, too. The larger 2 were above 3lbs, with the largest definitely above 3 1/2, maybe close to 4. All were in excellent condition, and powered off as though nothing had happened when I released them.

Whilst all this was going on, I was pleased to note that most of the other anglers were doing nothing, and, I fancy, were glancing jealously over in my direction – well, maybe not, but I know I do jealous glancing when I’m the one catching nowt, so it’s a welcome change in any case!

So, now, I’m on 6 with maybe not much more than 1 1/2 hours to go (’til dark). My previous best fly-fishery trout session count is 6! Wow, one more to set a new PB! As I wandered round the lake, I was feeling pretty confident.

Shortly afterwards, I managed to hook one, again on the magic fly, but it came off almost straight away. Rats! After that, no more takes on that fly at all, and eventually I had to concede that it probably had had its moment, and I should move on. I tried a couple of other combinations (heading very much to dusk by now) without success, before I noticed that a few fish were actively feeding from the surface. Aha! I quickly swithced the point (a small black crisp-packet buzzer) for a hares-ear shipmans (size 16) and a few casts later was playing my record-breaking 7th fish. Result!

And that was it. There were no more after that. The only action I got was when I got an extremely vicious take to the dropper, a black spider. The rod was nearly snatched from my frigid fingers, and the dropper knot failed. Weirdley, the knot broke very cleanly adjacent to the main tippet, but left everything else intact. I’m not quite sure how that happened…

The darkness drove me away by 6.45. They’ve been dropped by their record label, you know. Now, that is weird.

What else is weird is that the other guy on the fishery at the same time as me who seemed to be really bagging up didn’t beat my score by all that many – we’d arrived at the same time, and it seemed like he had a fish on every time I looked round. I guessed that he’d have doubled my catch rate, easily. In the catch book, though, he’d only entered 9.

Oh, hang on, I’ve just realised – there are 2 books, 1 for kills and 1 for C&R, I only looked in the sport book; I guess if he was on a ticket which included fish, he’d have split his catch over the 2 books, and the 9 were only the fish after he’d killed his limit. Hmm. That makes sense. Bastard. Ah, well, I had a good day anyway, it matters not a jot how well anyone else did, I had fun and caught a few.

Must get some waterproofs, though.