Vagabond

Yep, I think it an issue that everyone has to solve for themselves, The point is that if you can get your rod-tip within 15 ft of a trout without spooking it, there is more than one way of getting the fly in front of the fish A.K.Best (John Geirach's mate) said "The difference between a good fly fisherman and an excellent one is very often one split shot." You can't get a fly forward unless there is weight between rod tip and fly with which to do so. The rod looks fine, but you might try the effect of another thin coat of varnish to all whippings

Not heard from him for ages -but it looks like he has fallen out with my views on the status of eels (very common where I fish - whether we are talking about elvers, bootlaces, eel-pie size, smoked eel size or "thicker than your arm" size) I note he is selling for a higher price than he paid me !

That is nothing compared to how hard it is to reduce the taper by using glass-paper !

Depends upon the water you intend to fish If it is open, then a double taper as low a number as you can manage to cast with - try a #3 to start with, The point is, that distance and control depend upon the weight of line you have got out beyond the rod tip - either a long length of light line or a shorter length of heavier line, Avoid forward taper lines - they are too obvious and land too heavily on small streams - accurate and delicate presentation is very important If you fish very overgrown small streams - as I do - then you need to throw away the usual advice. Forget long leaders. On my streams the trout is very often only about 15 feet away from my rod tip - so as weight of fly line outside the rod tip is needed you can't afford to have too long a leader - i use about a yard or so of leader (shock, horror) The other thing is to use a level line. Any sort of tapered line is useless, because the thick part of that line will never get outside your rod tip. If you use any sort of taper, then short range switch casting becomes difficult **** (on the sort of streams I'm talking about, I would come home from a morning's fishing with a couple of trout without having made a single overhead cast all morning )- roll, side and switch casting are required - and a few tricks of your own will soon become part of the game. ***Why the difficulty ? Because the weight of fly line between reel and bottom ring exceeds the weight of line beyond the rod tip, so as soon as the fly hits the water, or even before, it gets drawn back. Bear in mind you may be crouched in rank vegetation, lying prone, or even hanging head-lower-than-heels over a wooded stream bank . It is not just the angler stood on his head, it is the logistics of fly fishing !

I remember a large rainbow/small water that I used to fish with a #7 greenheart. Some members treated the syndicate as a fashion show for expensive American fly gear and were very scornful of my greenheart , When a leaded nymph made contact with a £700 super carbo/boron or some such rod, the rod snapped the next time a fish was hooked. "That's the trouble with cheap plastic rods" was my comment - the rod owner seemed a bit miffed !

The first time Joe Taylor ("brother" of Fred J - actually a cousin) saw a hollow glass rod he asked "Can ya tread on 'em ?" That rod (Frank Guttfield's) eventually got trodden upon - not by me I hasten to add - as the said FG was somewhat unhappy about it. Tread on that little split bamboo fly rod of yours and the very worst will be scratched varnish or a bent ring.

Absolutely right Phone - which is why I made a trip to the Divide to catch brookies and greenback cut-throats. Even made a trip into Boulder and bought a few A.K.Best flies as if I hadn't got plenty of my own. Got my brookies, biut couldn't fish for the cut-throats as they were spawning llate - so sat and watched them instead. Got a nice mackinaw down at Blue Mesa the next week by way of compensation

One “too-clever-for-its-own-good” invention was the hollow glass “ ringless” rod. No outside rings – the line was threaded through a small hole in front of the reel, then passed (flip knows how) up the rod to come out of the agatine-lined tip. Greatest thing since sliced bread said the angling comics of the day. Around 1995 to 2005 we used to spend a fortnight each year near Oban, and had a few trips for skate, with Ronnie Campbell in Iona Jayne or later in Lorna Dawn (Davy Holt a previous AN member, knows Ronnie well.) On one of these trips a wannabe skate catcher turned up with a magic ring-less rod. I shook my head in disbelief, Derby Dave shook his head, Ronnie tried to tell this goof the rod was not man enough for skate. No, he was a knowall goof, and claimed he knew what he was doing, had caught cod the size of porbeagles, congers the size of sea serpents, won competitions, etc etc. So out we went, down went the baits in 600 ft of waterand - including the ringless wonder, and sure enough this knowall hooked a big skate. By big I mean well into three figures – we have all had ‘em out in the Firth of Lorne. The ringless bent to a quarter circle, then to a half circle and then......,.CRAAACKK!! It busted half-way down. The jagged broken butt cut through the mono, and skate, end tackle and 600 ft of 50 lb line (yes, it IS that deep) parted company with the hapless angler. I think that was the first and last ringless rod Ronnie allowed on his boat – the implications for skate conservation are pretty obvious. The craze for ringless rods didn’t last long

Rather than hi-jack Gozzers thread here is an off-topic slant on "Angling Aids - ie where and when I first heard the term. During WWII some Canadian soldiers were billeted at one of the stately homes that grace our part of the High Weald. War over, Canadians gone home, said stately homes empty, unguarded estate lakes to fish – heaven on earth for us schoolboys. There were numerous lakes and ponds, some yielding better fish than others. We were assisted in our choice of which lake to fish by a conversation with Shep – a nice enough lad, but only about ninepence in the shilling in general awareness. Shep’s mother had worked as cook for the Canadians (also she put in voluntary overtime, said the more malicious of the village gossips) and had from time to time brought a big perch home for the family supper. Shep, prompted by us, had gleaned from his mother the information as to which lake the perch came from, and the method employed. “Littleshaw, and they used angling aids” he said, Angling aids ? Well yes, but what ? Electrofishing ? Seine nets ? Some sort of Asdic?. A secret ingredient in their groundait ? Never mind, we now knew which lake to fish, and standard perch tactics yielded numbers of fish up to two pounds. It was some years before the explanation dawned. Examining the lake’s sediments during a new-found interest in Limnology, food chains, lake substrates and the like, some small pieces of shrapnel were found. Not from a bomb, but from something smaller. “Angling aids” was simply Shep-talk for hand grenades. Boom boom ! Readers of "Angling Vagabond" will have seen the story before..

A very worthy cause - well done.

Yep, I have lost count of how many whippings I have tied and varnished in 75 years of making my own rods, and never, never, have I been satisfied with the matching of different shades of whipping. True, the fish can't see them, but I can, and it gets on my wick ! I did solve it for a few years by laying in a "lifetime's" supply of thread in just two colours - cherry red for split-bamboo and green for greenheart, hickory and native woods. That was fine, but having a lot of rods to refurbish, I ran out of those threads about ten years ago. Now the problem is solved for me - age tremor means I can't do a neat whipping any longer, so when a rod needs refurbishing I give it away. Cant tie flies any more either, but I have enough rods and flies to last me (until that 100th birthday trip Ajay )

Thanks Steve, How is that little split-baboo getting on? Ready for the "off" in a fortnight ?

I (and Gozzer) know the feeling. But a splendid fish anyway, never mind what it weighs. Well done.

Hi Newt, and thanks for your good wishes. That is a very kind offer, but may I postpone acceptance until we know what sort of improvement the procedure I am undergoing on 3rd April will bring ? At the moment anything more energetic than walking a few steps brings on an attack and the need for nitroglycerine - over the last twelve years I must have used enough to blow up the Houses of Parliament - who said that would have been a preferred option ? take his name !

Hi Martin. Glad to hear that, particularly if it keeps you fishing. However, cardiovascular diseases are a bit like roach swims, - superficially similar from a distance, bur differences in detail on closer examination. For example, I too am on a "lifetime medication cocktail" yet the only drug we share is the beta-blocker. If a stent would solve my problem I would have had one inserted months ago. - but no, they need to bore out the plaques first. The speed with which I have been passed from registrar to senior consultant, then from him to a teaching hospital and their senior consultant seems a measure of the complexity of my problem. Or to put it another way, the upside is having the best man available, the downside is why it is thought necessary ..... Anyway, in just over a fortnight I will hopefully be recovering and planning my next fishing trip, so lets continue this discussion then.

Last time this subject came up someone (I think Poledark) suggested we oldtimers could tie on a spade end by hand whilst others were still struggling to get a ready-tied out of the packet (to which one might add "or rummaging around in their tackle box for a hook tier") Like any knot, if you tie it enough times it becomes second nature.

Yep, wood-ants are common in the south-east, rare in midlands and north - absent from Scotland. There is some other sort of mound builder in Scotland but a different species. We get the smaller black and red ants also - they DO bite - usually after 300 have already got up yer trouser leg !

LOL, I already have done that, and keep finding other forceps faster than I lose my own, The best was a "camouflaged" pair that I just happened to find by touch - they obviously had been invisible to the previous owner ! Scraped the paint off and polished them, and they are now very visible in Shiny Stainless Steel.

High up near the top of the Ashdown Forest lies the Five Hundred Acre Wood. The wood is now criss-crossed by foresters’ tracks, many of which are public footpaths, but it was not always so. When I was a boy, over seventy years ago, there were very few trails in the wood, as access was forbidden. Forbidden access was no obstacle to determined small boys, however, and we knew and traversed every inch, not only of the “Five Hundred” , but the Ashdown Forest and its surrounds for a radius of ten miles. Thus it was that we came across “The Empire of the Ants” Not just any old ants, but wood-ants, which build large mounds in Southern heaths and woods. You can smell the formic acid-based odour the mounds give off from several yards away. The ants themselves look terrifying, half an inch long, long legs and fast moving. They can squirt poison a few centimetres, and prêy on oak caterpillars and pine-moth grubs, climbing trees to get at them. Thus the mounds are found near oaks and pines. On open heathland the ants favour bracken. However, despite their fearsome appearance, in seventy years on the forest, I have never been bitten by a wood-ant, nor come across anyone who has. I’m not brave enough to test the hypothesis that they don’t bite humans , so normally I give them a wide berth. Which brings me to the “Empire” In the “Five Hundred “ wood there used to be a small pond containing small tench and surrounded by oak-trees and several large wood-ant mounds. Having found it, and being a fan of H.G.Wells, I named the water “The Empire of the Ants” All along the banks of the pond wood-ants scurried to and fro – there was not a square foot anywhere near the pond that was ant-free. In those days very few local ponds held tench. In fact, this was the only such pond within walking distance (ten miles) of my home. There was thus a conflict between wood-ant phobia and my desire to catch tench. So imagine a ten-year-old fishing for tench in this pond, not sitting down with angling accoutrements scattered around the swim, but standing, carrying everything about his person, and slowly “marking time”, like a soldier on parade, as he fished, with anxious glances at his feet every ten seconds The tench were small – small enough to go in a two-pound jam jar – and were transported to and released into other (reasonably ant-free) ponds in the area (there was no Section 30 in those days). Incidentally, I cannot remember ever re-capturing a tench from any of the ponds thus stocked - unlike other ponds we “seeded” with other species such as roach, rudd, perch, gudgeon and crucians. A year or so ago I mentioned the “Empire” to Norma, and her bird-watching interest was immediately aroused. Green woodpeckers (Yaffles) love wood-ants for lunch,. Norma hoped to find some yaffles feeding upon wood-ants, so I promised to show her the “Empire” when we were next in the area. What a change ! Nothing there but birch scrub and brambles. Over sixty years worth of falling oak leaves had filled the pond, so not a drop of water to be seen, just a miry patch of silt and rotting vegetation. The oaks had gone (forestry ?) and with them the wood-ant mounds. In fact not a wood-ant in sight. Hic transit gloriae mundi. Not one of life’s prime angling spots, but I was saddened to find it gone.

Reading Tigger’s thread re “a few Hours”, I was reminded of the last occasion I spent a few hours fishing – back in October 2016. This current lay-off is the longest break from fishing since I caught my first bullheads at the age of seven back in 1941 (Note that by “fishing” I mean going fishing on your own or with mates of a similar age – being allowed to wind in one of Daddy’s roach at the age of three doesn’t cut it) Why the lay-off ? Read on. AN members at the last Wingham auction may remember Norma winning the “two days charter of Budgie’s boat” item, and in October we duly turned up at Horning to claim our prize. I had decided to concentrate on trotting maggots for roach, so came equipped with a Preston Trotter and Okuma Sheffield, leaving my split-bamboos and Aerials at home. I had no knowledge of the Bure below Wroxham either, as my previous experience of that river was confined to reaches above Aylsham, around 70 years ago. So first principles and pot luck would have to take the place of local knowledge. Thus, we set off, with half a gallon of Budgie’s finest and a few red worms. motored about half a mile downstream, and anchored up at a good-looking swim. A dozen maggots a minute were trickled in whilst I was tackling up, and when ready, I was rewarded by a roach the very first trot down. Then began the usual pattern of roach trotting, a small roach a chuck ,with gradual increase of size as better roach were attracted in . The two ouncers became four ouncers, the four ouncers became half-pounders, all going to plan. The half-pounders became.......No they didn’t, the bloody tide had turned, my float was no longer trotting, and the fish had gone right off. There’s no substitute for local knowledge, we should have started in this swim two hours earlier. Ah well, if the fish were not feeding, I knew two folk as would. Budgie had given us details of the best riverside pub in Horning (local knowledge again !) so we went there and got outside a large helping of Beef and Guinness pie, with chips, two veg, mustard an’ all Back down river, it was more difficult to pick a good swim on the flood – the water was more turbid, and slower. Small roach were everywhere with the occasional perch and rudd thrown in for good measure. Eventually I settled for attracting a seething mass of small roach and fishing small red worms on the edge of the shoal. That way I did pick up a perch or two around the pound mark, but no monsters. Did I say anything about the wind ? No, and I didn’t notice it until mid-afternoon. It was cold, and eventually I noticed breathing was painful ‘cos my bronchi were getting inflamed. So wisely we packed up. Not a red letter day, but stacks of small and medium sized fish – very much an average day. That evening, I learnt something about fishing into ones eighties. Four separate causes of chest discomfort. The inflamed broncihi afformentioned, heartburn from the beef and Guinness pie, and a repetitive strain injury to the intercostal muscles – due to several hours continuous trotting., winding in, and recasting. All three quite trivial and self-healing in a couple of days (or in twenty minutes via the ingestion of four Rennies in the case of the heartburn). The fourth, alas, was not trivial – my angina was much worse, and we had to abort the second day. To cut a long story short, lots of investigations these last few months, culminating in an attempt to insert stents by the senior local cardiologist, which he wisely aborted as the local facilities were inadequate for the condition he discovered during the attempted stent implant. He referred me to King’s College, and their senior cardiologist will attempt what is in effect a rebore of some of my coronary arteries in three weeks time. So my new season will start in effect as soon as I have recovered from that . If I shouldn’t make it, then my affairs are in order, Norma and I have caught over 500 species between us, and produced a not inconsiderable self-supporting family. I thus would leave many heirs but no dependents. Thank you all for an interesting forum, and for those I have met for being good fishing mates, However, I am assuming that I shall recover, and have bought all the relevant tickets and applied for my new licence. So see you all some time in April. Good hunting !

My uncle used to dig up wasps nests after a cursory smoking-out (sulphur and saltpetre). He only picked up two or thee stings per nest

As you can see, its worse than ambiguity over crayfish. owing to the sloppy wording If you interpret the above literally, you can't use dead, or frozen (even if cooked/ tinned/smoked or otherwise processed/etc ) fish from elsewhere either ...and last updated in 2015. As against that, despite submitting both my licence applications and my gamefish returns on time, I average three "reminders" per year for each, penpushers keyboard tappers, eh ?

Think yourself lucky you weren't all burnt at the stake for heresy ! I remember a hilarious episode of "The Likely Lads" where Bob recalls being very upset at the age of nine because Terry had told him "Presents are cancelled this year, as Santa has been gored to death*** by one of his reindeer" ** - or perhaps by the mechanism outlined by Barry Luxton in post #1988 of "Have a laugh"

Very true, John. Not "stret-pegging" at all, just trotting and occasionally holding back. A pity about the dubbed shots of battered roach in the tank, but nice to see the one roach caught looked in better nick. We had a discussion recently re stret pegging, and as John says, this cllip is nothing of the sort.

I joined a "traditional" outfit a year or so ago, and found out two things. 1,. A profound ignorance of angling tradition. The subject of Dick Walker vis-a-vis split bamboo cropped up, I mentioned that although Dick built some of his own, he got much ready-built from J B Walker (no relation) of Hythe. Now I knew this from private correspondence with Dick (I wish I had kept his letters), but more importantly, Dick refers to it in his book "Rod Building fort Amateurs" published 1952, and (many times) in "Drop me a Line" co-authored with Maurice Ingham. It was evident, judging from the disbelief with which I was faced, that nobody among the regular posters was even aware that either book existed, far less had read them. As I had joined hoping a reasonably erudite angling historian could enrich my knowledge, clearly that was not going to happen. 2. Intolerance of non-traditional methods Despite the experience of 1 above, I would have continued to contribute, but became aware that an angler had been expelled for daring to suggest that carbon fibre was also an excellent material for longer rods used in trotting.. Now I enjoy using split bamboo, and centre-pins too, but lets be clear, it's not a f***ing religion., I wanted no part of such an outfit and haven't posted since. There are a disturbingly large number of sites that will not allow opinions differing from their executive to be published - ask Barry Luxton. Avoid and ignore is my advice.