Post by myotis on Aug 13, 2012 12:24:48 GMT
As way of introduction and as this section is a little quiet, and as by coincidence the river I was fishing was the River Devon in Scotland, here is a report of my recent return to fly fishing after 25 years or so.
Going home to visit relatives is always rather demanding on time and planning some fishing difficult. But I was determined to get some in, and to give me the most flexibility I actually bought a season ticket, even though I was only there for two weeks.
I still only managed three to four hours on the River (20th July) at a point just downstream from the Dam that breaks the river at this point. But, at £17 a year for a trout licence, you can’t complain about the price, even if I did only get 4 hours out of it. And of course there is no rod license in Scotland, so the £17.00 was the total cost.
Note that since fishing here, I have found out that this stretch of is closed to fishing to let it recover from a couple of pollution incidents. A year ago, electrofishing found no fish at all this section.
In the picture below, the Dam is just visible as the river vanishes in the distance.
Further downstream it is a mix of slower stretches (see pics below) as well as some faster and deeper riffles, pools and pockets. A nice mix in a lovely setting, and although it doesn’t look it, a fair bit of the water was too deep for thigh waders.
In the four hours I saw four fish rise, and there were very few insects around. Later there were a few sedges and a couple of olives of some description. In the past I would have gone for a nymph or a wet spider, but I was determined to use a dry fly.
I started prospecting likely spots with a 12 Klinkhammer, but with no success, then I tried a 14 CDC and Elk and again no success. Then put on a 14 Blue dun, and the rising fish that had ignored me until now, immediately took the Blue dun. Of the four rising fish I saw, two were hooked on the blue dun, one continued to ignore it and I never managed to get a decent cast to the fourth.
However, that blue dun brought up another at least, ten fish (I actually lost count). Seven I hooked and three I missed entirely. The bad news is that of the seven I had on the hook, five very quickly got off again, so at the end of the day, I only got four fish into the net. They ranged in size from about seven inches to around ten inches This was about the size of all the fish that I missed or got off. Except for one.
This fish was in a deep pool where I first caught and netted a smaller fish, and then, almost on my next cast I raised this fish of at least 14 inches. It seemed at least twice the size of the other fish I had caught. (After giving this some thought and trying to remember what it looked like, I think this could well have been a rainbow as they occasionally “overtop” from the Reservoir, where they are stocked)
Unlike the smaller fish that had all grabbed the fly in a very excited manner, this fish very slowly came up, sipped in the fly, turned and slowly swam towards me. I took up the slack on the line as it went past me, and once it had moved a little further away, gently struck the fly. I hadn’t really been able to pull the hook home with the fish swimming towards me. For a millisecond, the rod bent and I could feel the weight of the fish. Then I saw him gently shake his head and my fly fell out of his mouth.
The smaller fish were all fairly feisty, and one took several leaps straight at me. I had no time to do anything except wrestle the net into position just in time for the fish to leap straight into it.
All told while I failed to take anything home for the pot, and I am going to need to do something about the number of fish getting off the hook, it was an almost surreal return to fishing. I can’t ever remember hooking so many fish in such a short time, especially to a dry fly when so little was rising.
And of course , In addition to my nostalgic return to the river after 25 years or so, the new element was trying out my Tenkara set up, An extremely interesting, enjoyable, and I think valuable, experience that I will describe in another post.
Graham
Going home to visit relatives is always rather demanding on time and planning some fishing difficult. But I was determined to get some in, and to give me the most flexibility I actually bought a season ticket, even though I was only there for two weeks.
I still only managed three to four hours on the River (20th July) at a point just downstream from the Dam that breaks the river at this point. But, at £17 a year for a trout licence, you can’t complain about the price, even if I did only get 4 hours out of it. And of course there is no rod license in Scotland, so the £17.00 was the total cost.
Note that since fishing here, I have found out that this stretch of is closed to fishing to let it recover from a couple of pollution incidents. A year ago, electrofishing found no fish at all this section.
In the picture below, the Dam is just visible as the river vanishes in the distance.
Further downstream it is a mix of slower stretches (see pics below) as well as some faster and deeper riffles, pools and pockets. A nice mix in a lovely setting, and although it doesn’t look it, a fair bit of the water was too deep for thigh waders.
In the four hours I saw four fish rise, and there were very few insects around. Later there were a few sedges and a couple of olives of some description. In the past I would have gone for a nymph or a wet spider, but I was determined to use a dry fly.
I started prospecting likely spots with a 12 Klinkhammer, but with no success, then I tried a 14 CDC and Elk and again no success. Then put on a 14 Blue dun, and the rising fish that had ignored me until now, immediately took the Blue dun. Of the four rising fish I saw, two were hooked on the blue dun, one continued to ignore it and I never managed to get a decent cast to the fourth.
However, that blue dun brought up another at least, ten fish (I actually lost count). Seven I hooked and three I missed entirely. The bad news is that of the seven I had on the hook, five very quickly got off again, so at the end of the day, I only got four fish into the net. They ranged in size from about seven inches to around ten inches This was about the size of all the fish that I missed or got off. Except for one.
This fish was in a deep pool where I first caught and netted a smaller fish, and then, almost on my next cast I raised this fish of at least 14 inches. It seemed at least twice the size of the other fish I had caught. (After giving this some thought and trying to remember what it looked like, I think this could well have been a rainbow as they occasionally “overtop” from the Reservoir, where they are stocked)
Unlike the smaller fish that had all grabbed the fly in a very excited manner, this fish very slowly came up, sipped in the fly, turned and slowly swam towards me. I took up the slack on the line as it went past me, and once it had moved a little further away, gently struck the fly. I hadn’t really been able to pull the hook home with the fish swimming towards me. For a millisecond, the rod bent and I could feel the weight of the fish. Then I saw him gently shake his head and my fly fell out of his mouth.
The smaller fish were all fairly feisty, and one took several leaps straight at me. I had no time to do anything except wrestle the net into position just in time for the fish to leap straight into it.
All told while I failed to take anything home for the pot, and I am going to need to do something about the number of fish getting off the hook, it was an almost surreal return to fishing. I can’t ever remember hooking so many fish in such a short time, especially to a dry fly when so little was rising.
And of course , In addition to my nostalgic return to the river after 25 years or so, the new element was trying out my Tenkara set up, An extremely interesting, enjoyable, and I think valuable, experience that I will describe in another post.
Graham
