Post by boisker on Aug 16, 2015 19:35:37 GMT
I popped over to the River Otter this afternoon, forecast overcast but turned out sunny most of the time. I had a choice of stretches to fish courtesy of a day ticket from Billyfish, so although the bright conditions would suggest one of the tree lines beats would be more productive i fancied a few hours on a more open stretch casting a longer line... I've spent most of the last few trips on narrower stretches of river in fairly windy conditions so just fancied aerialising some line.
Nothing was moving, but it was an enjoyable couple of hours working up the river casting a dry 20-40'. After about 2 hrs I spotted a fish rising against the far bank, cast out a little F-fly and bingo a nice little 10" trout.
I was just rinsing and drying the fly when a huge back porpoised about 10' upstream in the same run. I flicked out the fly and lifted into a very large sea trout, who promptly stripped 40' of line from the reel. It was at this point the thought occurred to me that it may have been wise to have cut back the 5' of stroft 0.1 ABR back to the 3x line above it.
It was an awkward spot as there were some big rocks in the water upstream and a fence line strung across the river. I managed to turn him (or more accurately he decided to turn!) and then after a charge downstream to a fallen tree in the river, which once again meant I had to put far more pressure than ideal, the stroft broke. Roughly half way between fly and the join to the 3x, definitely no wind knot in it, so I think it may have weakened rubbing over one of the large rocks upstream.
A bit gutted to put it mildly, I don't fish for sea trout having only ever caught one early this season of about 4lb, it was definitely a different class of fish..... Didn't see it well enough to estimate size but it dwarfed the one from early season.
Two things learnt...
1. Take a minute to think before getting excited and casting, playing it on 3x would have been far easier
2. I'm definitely going to focus on some sea trout fishing next season.
Nothing was moving, but it was an enjoyable couple of hours working up the river casting a dry 20-40'. After about 2 hrs I spotted a fish rising against the far bank, cast out a little F-fly and bingo a nice little 10" trout.
I was just rinsing and drying the fly when a huge back porpoised about 10' upstream in the same run. I flicked out the fly and lifted into a very large sea trout, who promptly stripped 40' of line from the reel. It was at this point the thought occurred to me that it may have been wise to have cut back the 5' of stroft 0.1 ABR back to the 3x line above it.
It was an awkward spot as there were some big rocks in the water upstream and a fence line strung across the river. I managed to turn him (or more accurately he decided to turn!) and then after a charge downstream to a fallen tree in the river, which once again meant I had to put far more pressure than ideal, the stroft broke. Roughly half way between fly and the join to the 3x, definitely no wind knot in it, so I think it may have weakened rubbing over one of the large rocks upstream.
A bit gutted to put it mildly, I don't fish for sea trout having only ever caught one early this season of about 4lb, it was definitely a different class of fish..... Didn't see it well enough to estimate size but it dwarfed the one from early season.
Two things learnt...
1. Take a minute to think before getting excited and casting, playing it on 3x would have been far easier
2. I'm definitely going to focus on some sea trout fishing next season.
