Feeling Flat in February

January and February have been really difficult to get out and do any sort of angling at all in my neighbourhood. A contrast of high winds and and ill timed downpours have seen to that. Even this weekends plans took a detour at the last minute. Brian and I were prepared to go and have a shot at the bass , when a northerly westerly showed up on the forecast . A wee look at  comfortable areas to fish took us too a Fife beach, the first time we have given it a shot called Ravenscraig beach.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was a charming  wee spot,  that gave us shelter with its distinctive  crags and ruins an at our backs with a steady off shore breeze. the day its self was pleasant with no rain  it felt almost spring like and that sparked up conversation of the coming season , trout , pike and SWFF,  float-tubing  amongst other species and methods , really looking forward for all that kicking off.

The flounder fishing for the time of year wasn't too bad either , between us we managed perhaps 10 to a dozen small flounder between us  ,  but like other beaches we have sampled on the Fife coast it went off on the last couple of hours approaching high tide. Still it was really nice to get out  with the rods and a bonus to  catch our first flounders of 2014.

watching for a bite

With the trout season now fast approaching I've been quietly going about  a bit preparation , a few new purchases such as a new   fly line ,a new pair of forceps , and I've had a few small sessions on the vice producing the usual klinks, shucked cdc's , dirty Pollies , wire nymphs the odd spider etc.

A start on the dries

 shucked cdc

Lots more to do but still another 4 weeks to go, roll on the brownies!

making plans

Something that's been on my to do list for a long time now is an early spring trip up to Orkney to fish for sea trout in the sea, I was thinking about this over the weekend and decided to put my plan into action, Ive been intending to visit my mum who lives up there anyway so I'm off for a long weekend at the end of this month, just in time for the start of the sea trout season!. Fingers crossed the weather won't be to rough so i can get a couple of days fishing in, although up there there's no guarantees.

Tackle wise all I should need is my sw fly rod, intermediate line, 8lb fluorocarbon  and a few different lures to try. The car's going be vital to search different locations, along with an ordnance survey map and a note of the tide times around the island. As you can see Ive made a wee start on tying a up some lures which i hope will do the trick.

 from what Ive been reading fly choice isn't to critical as the sea trout feed well in the spring, the difficult bit will be finding them in the first place, there's a lot of coastline to search and blanks are common.  

i'm looking forward to giving it a try anyway

 a clouser or two wont go a miss i guess

 marabou type lures are recommended too, i'll tie up a few in orange too. 

  

January, grayling nymphs and other stuff.

For me this January's been a bit of a disappointment from a grayling fishing point of view, the last couple of Saturdays on my favorite borders stream have been pretty uncomfortable with wind, rain and rising water levels, deep wading isn't much fun either to be honest, unless you find a grayling or two that is and  that's proving to be easier said than done. Having said all that i'll be back for more punishment in February if conditions allow, as this river contains some fine grayling with 3lb plus specimen a real possibility.

another 2lb15oz and this one will be a cracker!

i was inspired to tie up a few new nymphs to try after watching tight lines on sky sports the other night, where they did a great wee report on a grayling competition held on the Welsh Dee.

peeping caddis

hends rainbow spectra dubbing nymphs in light violet

some on jig hooks

red holographic butt

cdc red tag type thing

first published in 1968 and just as good now, a great winter read.

welcome winter colour in the garden just now, witch hazel

A mid-summer nights Dream

As the rain batters of the window, the only angling inspiration comes from looking at photos from seasons past , and from there i felt inspired to tie a few flies at the vice. My mind was taken to fishing for trout in  the hot summer evenings , with this now in mind i decided to tie a few spinner patterns, these are particularly handy during the months the blue winged olive is on the water but also for olive upright and large dark olive spinners too during a rare mild May evening .

 

Our evening fishing normally should be well underway by Mid May, i look forward to putting these flies  to use and hope they prove sucessful when the spinners start to fall.

beauty and the beast

I booked today off work with a bit of grayling fishing in mind as the river looked to be dropping nicely at the start of the week, unfortunately rain yesterday and overnight had pushed  the levels back up and today when i peered over the footbridge i saw that the river was even higher than it was at the weekend! oh well i was there now so thought i may as well give it a try anyway.

rivets on the footbridge

 wading was more or less a non starter today so i methodically fished up the margins of  the pool Col got his big grayling from on Saturday, without an offer, the only fish i saw was a dead salmon on the bankside.

not a pretty sight

  i wasn't at all confident but thought i may as well give a big pool downstream a shot, where surprisingly after a few casts i hooked a grayling, not a very big grayling but her colours were bright and beautiful, i was  pleased to catch her.

i fished on with renewed optimism hoping to find some of her pals but that turned out to be my only fish for the day, never mind there's always next time and fingers crossed the river level drops a bit.

Slogging it out in the Borders

Fishing opportunities have been really difficult to come by off late with the atrocious weather we have been enduring  in the UK at the moment , so with river levels finally dropping, me and Brian thought we would make the most of the opportunity to wet a line on our favourite river . A fish or two would be nice but when we arrived and saw the river  our optimism was slightly jaded by the height of the river which generally doesn't fish so well when its high, but on the plus side it had good clarity .

While we tackled up we were  immediately faced with a chilling downstream breeze, three bugs and a egg fly tied to the point fly. In our first few pools due to the height of the water we could only fish off the bank but we drew a blank , then we decided to move to another pool , which was fishable and wadeable, we combed  the area thoroughly and methodically , in that time I managed to hook and lose a brace of modest fish , which was if anything encouraging  before we decided to rest the pool and return later.

We then tried an  area a few miles downstream , but again we drew a blank and our heads were starting to go down.
 After a roll and mars bar we mustered the enthusiasm to have another go. Eventually i had a take , and landed a wee grayling on my top dropper a pink beaded  wire nymph ,a small triumph and it just gave us that we bit of a boost to carry on.

Brian was next of the mark with the smallest grayling I've ever seen, again though despite it's size it gave us encouragement to carry on.

Eventually my spiral indicator straightened and i was into what felt like  a better  fish, it was confirmed when it rolled combing the surface with a big  red fringed  fin , revealing it was  a big male.

 It pulled the Mclean weigh net down to 2 1/2lb .  It put a smile on my previously tripping face .

What a sail! 

We tried hard for another as the light was starting to go, but there was no further action .It had been a tough day,  just hope the water gets a chance to drop by a foot or so for next time and perhaps the grayling will be more obliging .



 

filling up the nymph box

The last few nights Ive been stocking up my much depleted  nymph box with some simple patterns, some for the trout season ahead, but mostly bugs with Grayling in mind.

the ever reliable glister bug for our local burns

olive ribbed with chartreuse magic glass

wire nymphs with pink tungsten in various sizes, ive also tied a load of copper beaded ones for the trout season.

hares ear heavy weights to get down to where it matters

fluff on a hook, egg flies took some big grayling for us last year.

two or three wee black wire patterns for midge feeders

various forms of the pink shrimp

the weathers looking settled for a change so fingers crossed they might be put into action this weekend with any luck.