far bank stalker
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Posts posted by far bank stalker
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i can definitely think of times when a pole float would be useful and have thought of using them. quite often though when your trotting it's useful to have a bit of weight on the line, it definitely makes it a touch easier to keep in good contact with your terminal tackle.
if i was you i would just get one and give it a run
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I'm afraid I can't think of an ideal book either. I would probably work out what type of fly fishing you'll be mostly doing (small streams, intimate stillwaters, reservoirs, etc.) and then get a book on that, and possibly an additional book on casting if that isn't covered very well. Having a look around google video or youtube might be worth it too.
I started fly fishing in my teens so that I was able to fish in the closed season. I taught myself everything, and consequently have some very bad casting habits that I find difficult to shake off. I'm OK, but a long way from good. So an hour or two with an instructor (or friend, or whoever) is a good idea to get the basics straight.
Now there is no closed season I've started fishing for tench during the traditional trout time, so I don't do much fly fishing these days - a handful of days at Farmoor with Steve W and some evenings at a local tributary in spring fishing for the spooky little brownies (plus whatever chub and dace some my way!). It's a lovely way to fish, totally absorbing and very exciting. It can be really frustrating too. Really frustrating
I'm hoping to have a day at Farmoor with Steve W tomorrow, as the rivers are flooded and it's so mild. (Steve - I'm still waiting on permissions, sorry about that! Should be fine, will let you know asap.) I'm really looking forward to it. Variety is the spice of life and all that. This wind will make it interesting though, especially with long leaders and 2 droppers
hey thanks anderoo. will be fishing between small/medium river, stream and maybe, from what you and everybody else has said a canal with fairly fast moving current (for a canal any way). i used to fish a lot of lakes when i was younger and it doesn't really appeal anymore, so hopefully one book may cover it (hmmmmm?)
hope you get your permits and have a productive day tmrw
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thanks everybody for all your replies. to be honest it was the snobbery that put me off when i was young, but i keep meeting people when out who only fly fish and are far from snobby, regardless of background, so this opened my eyes. also reading old books and finding out that before the 20th century people generally where anglers and fished all styles for every species or weren't anglers set me to thinking that really if i loved fishing as much as i thought i did then i shouldn't really restrict myself over some misconceived rubbish.
i am now officially all excited about the prospect of all that new stuff to learn!
there is a 'put & take' very close. i can't stand them, or the very idea of them but thats not going to stop it being there so.....in for a penny in for a pound. i'll give them a call in march.
the endorsments for the jardine book, and the man himself means thats the book i'll get along with the other stuff suggested
just got back from the absolute worst session ever! most of it spent chasing my bait box around in the wind, then scraping maggots out of the grass! oh well, not long now
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It's easy to trot wet flies and more usually nymphs and especially with the latter just put one or even a couple of leaded nymphs one just above the other and trot in the usual manner or another effective combo is a heavily leaded nypmh on the point and a wet fly on the dropper above.
Easy and under the right circumstances very effective especially for grayling.
And a wonderful way of winding up peppery old committee men in game angling clubs where the rule is fly only!
:Dat the risk of sounding mischeavous that is exactly why i wanted to know. the two sections of river closest to me have one free to all methods and another fly only. seemed a shame not to be able to fish both!
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i found this site really helpful before i'd switched on to the forums. i learnt to trott with this site and practice
http://www.infinityrodcreations.com/floatf...ction/index.htm
good luck and tight lines
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I bought my first fly rod after about 25 years a coarse angler. The first couple of years I had it, I only used it to fish dry flies for coarse fish on the upper Thames. The principles of dry fly fishing are pretty easy to grasp, floating line, floating fly, get it over a fish and you can see if it takes it. Small chub and dace rise willingly to flies, and obviously a coarse angler knows where to find them.
Eventually, I decided to try trout fishing, and booked an hour's instruction at a local water. My casting wasn't too horrible, and I was shown how to fish buzzers - imitations of midge pupae rising from the mud to the surface. I found a bit of wild brown trout fishing on club ticket and bought a lighter outfit for small stream fishing. I started fishing the stream through the coarse fish closed season, and also Farmoor with Anderoo. I also started to frequent a small stillwater about 15 minutes drive from home. I got used to fishing wet (sunken) flies under different conditions, started tying my own flies.
I bought a few books, started buying various magazines, started reading a fly fishing forum, asked questions on AnglersNet, etc. It would have been nice to find one book that covers everything an experienced coarse angler needs to know to take up fly fishing, but if there is one, I never found it.
hey. so much to learn! and tying my own flies sounds fun too. i know its fun to catch fish on a home made float, but i reckon a home made fly must be just as good.
i did hear vaguely that it was possible to trott a wet fly, but the more i think about it the less it seems likely. have you ever heard anything about this method? anyway thanks steve
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Hi,
It's interesting that I am in slightly the reverse position to yourself. I have been a fly and lure fisherman for over 40 years and have just had an overwhelming desire to have a go a float trotting. Something I have never done.
I got all the current magazines and even ordered a book from amazon and waded my way through everything I could read until I decided what I wanted. Not that easy when the emphasis these days seems to be mostly on Carp fishing.
Like you, I too felt there was some mystique about it all. But in fact that is not really true.
Books can only give you a basic idea, and in fact you would do better watching videos on the subject. Hywell Morgan did a TV series on learning to fly fish, with the emphasis on casting, and these are really good. He has quite a few DVD's available on Amazon - look under the heading of DVD & Blu Ray, using fly fishing as a subject.
One of the best DVD's on casting a fly is by American Joan Wulff - a brilliant fisherlady, very technically accurate, and holder of many records.
After gaining some understanding of the sport and deciding what type of fishing you wish to do - stillwater or river, then my very best advice would be to seek professional tuition. Nothing can beat being taught by a good pro. It will prevent you getting into bad habits and you will learn to cast so much quicker.
Casting a fly is really quite easy, but time and time again I see this done badly on the TV - poor timing, over powering the rod, tailing loops, etc. All of this can be prevented with a little help.
Look on the internet or in the angling papers for a local APGAI or REFFIS qualified instructor. He/she will also be able to help you with advice on tackle selection, leader set up, fly selection, reading the conditions and location, etc.
Once you have caught your first fish on a fly rod I will bet that you will totally fall in love the method.
Fly fishing is not only limited to game fish, Chub, Perch, Pike, Carp, Shad, and one or two suprising others that you will be totally familiar with as a coarse fisherman, can also be caught on the fly. A good Carp on a fly rod is simply eletric.
Good luck
hey. thanks hopinc! going to save this one and i'll try the dvd's out and i'm pretty sure i can get some professional tuition.
persevere with the trotting! of all the methods i've fished in my life, which is not many to be honest, trotting is for me at least the most satisfying and i can see definite similarities in certain aspects of both methods. very pro-active
again thanks
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it occured to me last night that if i'm to have an opinion on stuff, which seems unavoidable unfortunately, then i'd better at least have some idea of what i'm talking about!
when i was a kid, many moons ago fly fishing wasn't for me, that was clear. of all the tackle shops i went into none carried anything other than course tackle/pigeon shooting equipment. that thankfully doesn't seem to be the case anymore, and in fact may never have been, the shops in london i went to may just have been different.
anyway can any one recommend a book on fly fishing (either dry, or both) that would make sense to a course angler that doesn't even know much about course angling? maybe an idiots guide if you will! or any other good resource?
i'm determined to find out what all the fuss is about this year
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my local waters are teeming with Dace, my fishing sessions are mostly about how to get through them and into the good roach, chub and perch that usually follow behind. from summer to autumn there are specimen Dace to be had every day and i reckon a record fish is in there. still i have no scales and can't really see me getting any
Teme man mentioned something in another thread about how his local water had alot of dace and some good roach, but the roach were always like hangers on, maybe a bit bullied and harassed looking and that sounded just like my waters
i have caught several chub, maybe up to 2lb but whenever i mention this to local anglers i get the same response which is 'oh, yeah i had heard there were some in here' and this seemed odd to me. granted most of the local anglers seem to target the big bream, so often i don't think they're in the perfect situation to catch them but even the most switched on bloke i spoke to wanted to know where i'd caught them
as i said they seem fairly small, but its a very small water, shallow and narrow. i suppose i was wondering why so small? am i missing the big ones?(hopefully have an answer to that later this yr) have they only just taken to the water, or are the other species so successful that they're keeping the weights down by competing for food?
i'm thinking that seeing as the locals really don't seem to know they are there then maybe they've just made their way in and if thats the case they might start getting big! anyway all opinions are gratefully welcomed
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pretty sure that some people delaminate sections of their rod to solve problems, like a crack in one strip then re-glue. i have genuinely read advice on how to do this and it was to chuck the section in a pond and leave it a few weeks, then if your lucky it'll delaminate.
i reckon thats pretty strong
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this has always been a low level fear of mine. my fishing and dog walking takes me to remote and unusual places. i hope the angler has been offered the right support
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Now that's funny!
My answer is that it depends. I would imagine that if you like a social down at the lake, few tinnies, maybe a spliff, pizza delivered on the bank, that's probably not geeky. If you are trying to remember whether the component of a force acting along the adjacent axis is F*sin(θ) or F*cos(θ) so that you can work out whether putting a sunken float on a rig would be more or less likely to keep it on a gravel bar, you are an incurable geek, and probably so are all the people you are discussing it with... Likewise if you are having in depth discussions on the relative merits of cane and various composites or if you authored a monster thread on how to fabricate the perfect bobbin. If you're having all those discussions via the internet, you're geek^2. But then being a geek is yoof for not being completely disinterested in everything, and being disinterested in everything is the mark of very dull people who are only really interested in themselves and what others think of them.
I'm a fishing geek. I'm a car geek, I drive the car geek's choice of car, mostly bought for some reason by IT geeks, which given that I write computer software for a living, I qualify as. I'm interested enough in playing guitars to be geeky about it, but not talented enough to be cool. I keep tropical fish, but not just a community tank for the ambience, a couple of biotopes - I was enough of a fish geek to pursue two degrees in them. My homebrew becomes an exercise in applied biotechnology - last time I made cider I ended up ordering freeze dried malolactic bacteria. My cooking aspires to emulate Heston Blumenthal, not Gordon Ramsay. You know what? I don't care. I'm only a couple of years off forty now, this is how I am, this is how I've always been, it suits me and I don't give a toss what anyone else thinks!
I highly recommend not giving a toss, it's very liberating!
very eloquently put sir!
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i take continual stick from my 'cool' friends. i don't even bother trying to explain, just laugh with them and wonder what the fook it is they do whilst i'm surrounded by nature and beauty
being a geek is IMOHO a damn fine thing and i really don't mind identifying myself as one.
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I don't think there where any difficult angling skills in most of the CTI series or none that spring to mine anyhow. Getting back onto the float fished tench, he simply float ledgerd and his cast was just a simple underarm flick just beyond his rod tip.....I fail to see how that's a difficult angling skill. Lets face it Andrew that's just what we did when we where little kids.
Chris's last post just proves that alot of the preperation for the fishing is actually done by other people (just like eating a cake after someone else has done the baking). It's like in the episode when he was trotting a river for chub...blimey he could see the buggers and they wheren't exactly shy fish where they.
What about the catfish episode ? He just sent his bait out to a likely lookin spot via a baitboat and went to bed LOL.
Sometimes the books accompanying the series are worth a read to bring everything into prespective. The Passion for angling book is interesting also and explains things not visible in the programme.
yay! thanks for the passion for angling book tip.
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I didn't mention pre-baiting! On that lake, pre-baiting would be a waste of time so I doubt he did that (busy lake, so no guarantee of getting that swim). But I bet they did put loads of effort in, which is why he had the success he did. Of course he's a better angler than me! My personal view is that he's not a great presenter, but he is without doubt a seriously good all-round angler. And not because he fishes waters that are off limits to us average joes.
i used to ride a BMX semi seriously. unlike fishing the difference in quality of skill is very easily discernable. the good ones don't crash as much, but there is always, wherever you go one kid who is head and shoulders above the rest for no real reason. talent is talent and some people just seem to have it.
the person i used to pigeon shooting with was immense. every bird i shot was just because he had let me. if i hadn't been there the bird would have dropped a couple of seconds earlier. still, i always caught more fish than him!
when i used to fish tolpits in watford it took me two night session to have a guess that the tench patroled the margins at dawn, i reckon to pick up the anglers spill-overs. sure enough, they did every dawn i was ever there and i had a couple off that observation, but it wasn't skill that got me the result, i was just bored one morning staring into the water
thats the beauty of fishing though, it's there for all of us average joe's
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i dont know about everybody else but the finest i ever go is 4lb mainline to a 2lb hooklength, and i still catch ok.
I dont like to fine it down too much in case of a big carp or bream coming and snapping you off, learnt that the hard way
no big carp to catch where i am (near llangollen) but quite a few bream. i had one about 4lb on the 2.4/1.5 ok, but it was a shock, i wasn't really expecting to catch bream trotting in the daytime to be honest.
i suspect there are some big ones though because the locals really target them and the fact that they live in constant current means the give a very good account
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it was the shouting in the topic headline i was referring to ,well before i got diverted strange i was singled out in the gardening tips
oh hey, not singled out broseph just thought only one needed. i can be pretty arrogant without meaning to be on subjects i love sometimes. i promise you though, the two bottom sites contain all the knowledge required to build a rod from a culm of slightly better than garden grade tonkin (you are right though, the difference is mostly about appearance) to the finished article.
the top site, with the help of about £3000 gives you all the tools, materials, dvd's and book's
the experience?
i reckon chapmans do a good rod or scottie, for reasonable money and if you want to go to a one man outfit and have something really really special then i reckon up to £1000/£1100 is arguably fair, much more than that though and you want your head checking, but that is again with the caveat that something really special might be done to the rod, not to make it work better but aesthetically, maybe burr walnut reel seat or sumsuch. hell knows
the bicycle racing scene divides clearly between those who ride bikes purely to win races and get results, and those who like that, but are also in to the aesthetic aspects of a bicycle. a bit like hot rodders if you will
any way, hopefully i haven't offended too many people and again the info is good, i made a bunch of fairly brash statements and providing the info was kind of a way to say i wasn't just blowing smoke!
tight lines chester
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i just changed the youtube clip to the correct one, i was in a rush to get to the canal! this bloke has about an hours worth of him making a rod from beginning to end
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Yes, or thread a single maggot onto a size 18
The other simple thing is the distance from bottom shot to hook. This bottom shot is very important - it is the tell-tale shot that governs bite indication.
Start with the shot at about 8" from the hook
If you get sucked maggots and don't see the bites, move that shot a couple of inches closer to the hook.
Conversely, if you get snatches and miss them, move it a couple of inches further away from the hook.
...and try at different depths/different lengths of line laying on.
If all else fails, try a different month
.hey thanks! the advice about threading the maggot was golden! same problems today, only the fish were visibly in my swim. several bites in i threaded the maggot on to an 18 and bingo, a small dace on the first cast!
nothing else for the day, but it was my first of the year so again thank you!
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i get the impression you want to say something
yes indeed, that one particular rod maker may be chiselling people. i said it already in another thread. the info was just so people interested could make up their own mind. whilst it's clear it's not for you, it could be gold dust for someone thinking of making their own rod
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These sites are good if you've ever wondered how a cane rods made. the bamboo rod forum can be confusing but read selectively should debunk some off the guff and mystical rubbish some less than honest rod builders would like you to believe
http://www.bamboorodmaking.com/
now i really am going fishing!
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at the risk of being annoying from reading that excerpt he definitely isn't doing anything particularly special. hand tempering is probably quicker than tempering in an oven and not as exact.
i promise you, his rods are brutally overpriced because of the cache his name add's. what makes his rods so different to one any gifted carpenter could do barring experience? and experience comes with practice i.e. anyone, with practice can do it.
i would urge anyone to check out these sites
http://www.bamboorodmaking.com/html/ralph_..._biography.html
the bamboo rod making one will land you on a duff page, but navigate your way around. if it's your thing then welcome to alladins cave of free information
now i come to think of it he does have ONE taper that he designed himself. the rest of the tapers, the thing that makes a rods characteristics can be downloaded from the rod making forum i posted
so, unless your rod has THAT taper then it is to all intents and purposes just an-other fly rod made to a pattern thats probably existed 50 or 60 years. unless mr barder is a wizard and imparting some special magic into the cane, otherwise just following simple mathmatical instructions with a plane, micrometer and depth guage. the planing forms do the rest. granted the plane may have a slightly more specialised blade than usaul, but it doesn't have to be. normal, ones work just fine but wear out quicker.
anyway, i'm off fishing now
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I get the impression from things like this that Barder do things laboriously by hand that other makers do not. The question for me is whether it is worth paying someone to do that, or whether the more efficient ways of doing it yield equally good results. Would you rather have your aluminium panel hand beaten by a chap at Aston Martin or hydroformed and laser cut by a machine at Audi - the Audi panel will be perfect... Are the efficiencies of the cheaper manufacturers like that, or are they like casting a fly reel instead of machining it? I don't know, and I guess I would have to try both types - if I couldn't tell the difference, there would be no point paying more, if I could, maybe there would be.
at the risk of being annoying from reading that excerpt he definitely isn't doing anything particularly special. hand tempering is probably quicker than tempering in an oven and not as exact.
i promise you, his rods are brutally overpriced because of the cache his name add's. what makes his rods so different to one any gifted carpenter could do barring experience? and experience comes with practice i.e. anyone, with practice can do it.
i would urge anyone to check out these sites
http://www.bamboorodmaking.com/html/ralph_..._biography.html
the bamboo rod making one will land you on a duff page, but navigate your way around. if it's your thing then welcome to alladins cave of free information
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True, and there are British rodbuilders who will make you a lovely rod for a quarter of what Barder charge. They have been described as taking 60 hours work per rod - not sure which rods that's for, but depending it puts Barder's hourly rate between twenty and thirty pounds an hour, ignoring materials. Plenty of garages charge more than that for their labour and facilities, which I guess puts it into context a bit. Seems a fair rate for something made in Britain by craftsmen, the question is whether you really want a rod with 60 hours labour in it?
there's a bit of a thing with hours and cane rods, and if the maths are true then chapmans make them for about two pence an hour. i think, although a may well be wrong, but some of those sixty hours are are oven time and curing time. also a lot of the jobs up to producing the bound blank can be done on mass,so while that part may take thirty hours for one rod, it also takes thirty hours for thirty. i think those hours start to kick in for real when it comes to putting down the final taper and whipping
the varnishing takes weeks. most rod makers varnish using a dipping tube which is a case of getting the mix of varnish and thinner right then pressing a button and carrying on with the next rod.
i'm not trying to detract from the skill involved, it's a subject i researched quite a lot and anybody interested should check the' rod builder list' an american chatroom containing most of their very most prestigious rodmakers. i'm quite good at making stuff and i spent a few months thinking i'd give it a crack, in the end i suspect the money paid to a professional would be wise spending, just offering the opinion that as with everything else, too a point you get what you pay for, after that your just paying for someones luxury holiday
FISH STOCKS/SIZE
in Coarse Fishing
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thats an idea, but i'm told there are good pike, definitely seen some up to about 5lb but told there's some real beasts knocking around. there are also a few specimen perch, so i'm inclined to think thats not it. it's not as if there are too many small fish, it's just the chub that are small.
it did actually occur that the locals may not have spotted the small chub because they thought they were large dace