Thursday 4 April 2013

Extreme Fly Fishing Pays Off

When you have to go, you have to go!  The weather forecast said air temperatures of 4C (say 38F) and strong NE wind.  What I didn't expect were the intermittant flurries of snow!  Having bought an 8 fish ticket and wearing more layers than a polar explorer, I trekked round to Bramble Point, set up my 10ft rod with an intermediate line with two cormorants as droppers and a small white and green lure on the point.  The water level was high so I had to wade 20 yards through shallows to get into thigh deep water. The wind coming onto my left shoulder almost allowed me to cast a full line.  I counted it down for a few seconds and on the 3rd cast, bang and I was in.  The fish took to the air a few times before I remembered my landing net was on the bank.  So I walked us both back and having grabbed it netted a beautiful blue trout.  It had taken the white lure.  Twenty minutes later I caught another lovely blue on the cormorant. 
 
By this time, in spite of me wearing my Patagonian fingerless mitts, my finger tips were so cold they were numb.  Interestingly, I found I could still tie knots, but by sight, not by feel!  I also found that the advantage of having numb finger tips is that you don't feel anything when you prick your finger on a hook.  It got just a bit too raw to stay there so I surrendered the location to a chap called John (who had cleverly put some old cut up neoprene waders as leg warmers on top of his lightweight waders).  I then wandered round to Seven Pound Creek to get out of the wind. Here things were a lot quieter both weatherwise and fishing wise.  Another brave fly fisher there had only had one fish.  For a few moments the sun was glimpsed though the clouds and the temperature rose a couple of degrees.  I thought I was on the Costa del Sol!
 
I decided to move on via the Fishing Lodge.  Having chatted with Janet I treated myself to a couple of Kit Kats (something I am not normally allowed) I worked my way up the bank between the Lodge and the dam.  Was I glad I moved?  Yes I was!  I was immediately into fish and they were up for a tussle, jumping and running like crazy.  I caught another 5 but 3 others threw the hook whilst in the air!  I even caught one on an orange blob, a fly I have never tried before.  Most of the fish were blues, but the final one was a cracking rainbow, worthy of a picture.
 
 
 

3 comments:

  1. Great blog, Alan! And thanks also for the tip about roly-poly. I used it to catch three more fish in Seven Pound Creek yesterday, including a very nice rainbow.

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  2. Hi (sorry I have forgotten your name, an age thing, these days I write everything down, hence the blog). Later in the year when the water warms up and the food and fish are near the top retrieving a minkie booby across the top of the water using roly-poly is a very effective way of catching trout. When you see the bow wave caused by a determined fish chasing lunch you get a real adrenalin rush!

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  3. Hi Alan. My name's Graham. I went out on Sunday, the day after the competition. I fished the bank again, but this time I made my way up to Rosemary Lane. I got no fish until I arrived at Goose Creek where I caught two blues around midday. I got them both in a twenty minute period. After that, things went quiet. At Rosemary Lane, I met three other bank fishers who had one fish between them before giving up at about 3pm. I fished my way back to the club house. From the dam wall I could see lots of buzzers in the water, but only two fish broke surface. I caught two more blues at Canoe Corner at dusk, again in a twenty minute period. I was the last to leave the reservoir: why do fishermen quit before dusk? See ya!

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