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through holes in bushes, around submerged tree roots, and under floating rafts of leaves on our of
proportion ultra-light five weight outfits.
Not exactly fly fishing as most regular practitioners would
recognise it though. A world of people skulking around
peering into the water, fearful of casting until they spotted
something worthwhile in case they inadvertently hooked the
wrong size of fish which would count against their
compulsory kill all bag limit.
Also, anglers with noisy ratchets removed from their reels
so they could sneak line off for casting without alerting
other 'stalkers' that a big fish had been located. And people
often not even casting at all for much of the time as they
dangled small heavily weighted nymphs down on just a
fluorocarbon leader, twitching it as much to trigger an
aggression response and grab as opposed to persuading the
fish to actually feed.
Graeme and I had a selection of leaded nymphs tied
specifically for the occasion by Syd Knight, including
Graeme's own pattern, the fire bug. That's what I had on
when I spotted a good sized fish lurking around some tree
roots behind an awkward line of bushes.
Phill Williams, Avington Somehow, I managed to get the rod through and started
twitching the tiny lure a foot or so away from the fishes
nose. It didn't like that at all. Several aggressive charges were made. Eventually, probably having driven
it half mad with rage, I saw the white inside of its lips indicating that the bug had been sucked in, and
knew that if I didn't strike instantly, it would be blown out again. That was my best Avington fish of
the day.
I never fished Lechlade so I can't really comment there. But I did on a number of occasions fish Pennine,
which I hoped would be the provider of the required big trout tick on my list. That unfortunately didn't
happen, though I saw a few doubles come out there from time to time.
My best was somewhere in the region of eight pounds, and what a fiasco that turned out to be. The
leader attachment loop came off my floating line as I was tackling up, so I tied a knot in the end of the
fly line and attach the leader directly behind it. What I neglected to do unfortunately was clip off the fly
line stub close enough to the knot.
I don't know what fly I was fishing. Probably some lure or other as it was winter time if my memory
serves me well. So, I pulled the fly line through the end eye, flicked the offering into the water at my
feet, then left it there while I pulled the required length of line from the reel and stretched it straight.
That done, it was time to make my first cast.
As I lifted the lure from the water to start false casting, it was immediately taken with barely more than
a yard or two of fly line out. Then to make matters worse, in all the excitement, I inadvertently drew
the temporary knot back through the small aperture of the end eye on the rod where it became lodged
because of the stub, leaving me to play quite a reasonably fresh fish on nothing more than the leader.
Happy days.
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