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The lazy way


Leon Roskilly

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OK Proven! :)

 

 

Down it went again, so I put down the half-eaten sandwich, picked up the rod and lifted into something.

 

With a third fish in the bag, I finished the sandwich without re-casting

 

What did I tell you ?

 

(6)eat a venison-and-mustard sandwich, (7) drink a cup of coffee, (8) pick rod up and (9) play the rainbow which has mysteriously become attached to your line :)

 

Only one thing you did wrong - real men don't put down a half eaten sandwich, they stuff what's left into their mouths before picking up the rod :lol::lol::lol:

 

Try the legered pop-up booby next time.

Edited by Vagabond

 

 

RNLI Governor

 

World species 471 : UK species 105 : English species 95 .

Certhia's world species - 215

Eclectic "husband and wife combined" world species 501

 

"Nothing matters very much, few things matter at all" - Plato

...only things like fresh bait and cold beer...

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I had a few hours grayling fishing on Saturday afternoon, and caught a few using these two flies - any resemblance between the orange foam wing post and a float is entirely coincidental :D

 

duo.jpg

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Leon

So you were of fly fishing when you should have been Piking with Sue and myself on the Rother. She managed a nice fighting fit Jack of around five pounds I managed to blank.

 

 

Tony

Tony

 

After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

 

 

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Leon

So you were of fly fishing when you should have been Piking with Sue and myself on the Rother. She managed a nice fighting fit Jack of around five pounds I managed to blank.

 

 

Tony

 

 

Ah! I thought that with five-bellies not able to make it, piking was off :(

 

Well done Sue :)

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Ah! I thought that with five-bellies not able to make it, piking was off :(

 

Well done Sue :)

 

Where did you go then?

Tony

 

After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

 

 

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Where did you go then?

 

 

Parkwood :)

 

Given the weather (and cost of petrol), I didn't want to go too far.

 

(As it was my hands were freezing, even with fingerless gloves, at least until the adrenalin from catching my first fish of the day kicked in).

 

And Parkwood being not that deep or large doesn't give the trout the option of huddling at the bottom out of casting range :)

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  • 1 month later...
I think there are two issues - fly lines are relatively low stretch, and because they are so thick the drag they create can lead to putting more pressure on the fish than you intended to.

 

 

Hmmmm!

 

 

A couple of sessions ago, whilst playing a fish I had the line part between leader and tippet and put it down to a bad knot.

 

 

Then I lost another fish and fly when the line went at the knot to the fly.

 

In this instance, I felt that it was very much down to the way I'd played the fish.

 

On a hard water I'd already lost one fish when it slipped the hook (I wasn't too upset, I already had plenty of trout in the freezer, and the fish had put up a very decent fight).

 

It was a couple of hours later that I saw a fish rise, cast to the rise and, as I tightened the line ready to begin a slow retrieve, the fly was taken on the drop and it was game on.

 

The fish went ballistic and led me a merry dance all over the place.

 

It's sudden lunging runs had me dropping the rod before I had a chance to concede line and it was one of these incidents that was my undoing.

 

With the rod dropped low, and as I held the line ready to start lifting the rod again, the fish was off with nothing to buffer the lunge and I felt the line go.

 

Luckily there was no one else around to hear the 'sounds' I made.

 

After a hard day, a couple of hours with no action, then spotting a fish and casting to it, congratulating myself on my angling prowess on hooking it, then a spectacular fight, I felt that I'd been caught off-guard like a novice.

 

With the earlier incident of a smash-take, and now two fish lost while playing, I began to recognise that past experience with centre-pins, light stretchy lines and long forgiving rods was not relevant to fly-fishing, and that just like learning to cast a fly, where all previous experience works against you, I needed to rethink how I was to play a fish on this unfamiliar tackle.

 

One thing for sure, was that I wasn't going to be caught with 'rod down' again like that.

 

Easier said than done!

 

It's so much easier when you are controlling a fish with a finger in the side of a centre-pin reel, but when the only control of the line is the grip you have on the line sliding between your fingers, and the fish lunges and letting go of the line makes it hard to get the line back, you are into a different ball-game.

 

Next session was at a venue where a sporting ticket gives you 5 catch and release fish, and with the fish taking readily, I was soon into my second ticket.

 

This session was all to be about critically examining what factors come into play with a fish on, how they are different to what I normally expect, and how to deal with it.

 

The first thing that was bought home to me was the fish wasn't where I thought it was!

 

Using an intermediate line and fishing deep, a take 'in the margin' could actually still be some way out, Oh! and quite a bit off to one side.

 

With the line going down into the water, and down further into the drop off, I'd be surprised to see a trout leap into the air, out a bit, and (say) to my right, and it would take me a millisecond or two to realise it was the fish I was playing 'down there'!

 

Of course it is all down to line drag.

 

Unlike previous experience with ordinary mono where there is a straight line direct to the fish, there will inevitably be a curve in the line as the fish powers off in one direction, leaving the line from your rod-tip pointing in another direction, whilst the force of the run at the rod-tip gives the impression that the fish is where the line is pointing.

 

And the feel at the rod tip is only a fraction of the force that the fish is actually imposing on the tippet, the rest of the force being absorbed by the bow in the line.

 

As fish lunged, I tried hard not to lower the rod tip, but to concede line quickly when the fish pulled and although I was mostly successful in doing that, I was at least quick to recover the situation when old instincts led me astray.

 

So, ten fished netted on barbless flies, and another 'soft release' that I was happy about.

 

And a start at least down the road of learning to play hard-fighting fish on tackle that seems to me compromised more towards casting flies than playing fish.

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I have had a good afternoon catching rainbows on apps bloodworm on an intermediate line. Good fun, had three rainbows and a little perch. Two trout released in the net, one had somehow swallowed the fly and was duly coshed and taken home. It is now in the form of smoked trout fillets, which I shall enjoy tomorrow. That's the only trout I've ever deep hooked on the fly, and it took a beadhead apps bloodworm on the point, against a taut line being given a twitchy figure-of-eight. Must have just bolted it straight down.

 

I think this style is lazier than using an indicator, you don't even need to concentrate, the retrieve becomes automatic and you can let your mind wander until it all suddenly goes solid.

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That's the only trout I've ever deep hooked on the fly, and it took a beadhead apps bloodworm on the point, against a taut line being given a twitchy figure-of-eight. Must have just bolted it straight down.

 

 

Out of habit I carry a disgorger and a small pair of curved forceps and I was beginning to wonder whether they would ever be needed when fly fishing. That answers that question which was beginning to form at the back of my mind. Thanks Steve

 

 

I think this style is lazier than using an indicator, you don't even need to concentrate, the retrieve becomes automatic and you can let your mind wander until it all suddenly goes solid.

 

 

Fishing an intermediate, I do miss the visual sign of a take on a floating line, when the line out there suddenly comes alive and some action is needed on your part.

 

Finding a fish on whilst watching the antics of a coot etc, especially when the take on the intermediate line is gentle, seems to miss out the best heart-stopping moment of fly-fishing!

 

 

But I've noticed on several occasions lots of follows on a lure fished on a floating-line when, having examined the 'fly', the trout turn away. Whereas the different action of a fly worked on an intermediate is taken readily.

 

Perhaps that's just something on waters fished hard where many of the trout have learned to avoid things that move up as they move forward

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