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.

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.  

On the Bench

A nice whiting badger cape has sat in my drawer unused , decided to tie up some grey duster variants, just turkey biot klinks in truth but in greyduster guise. would have preferred them more if the badger cape had bigger black centres. Dressed on size 14 kamasan b100's. look forward to trying them out next spring .

abdomen :grey turkey biots
thorax: mole
wing post: white poly yarn
hackle: badger

Evening on the Green burn

Went up to a fertile local burn this evening. I tied some spinners prior to this visit having seen them (olive upright spinners) in abundance further down on the river last night whilst walking the dog.

 hook: sprite model perfect 14
 tail: coq de leon
abdomen: mahogany turkey biots
 wing: light grey poly yarn
 thorax: rust dubbing






 

The river was low and fairly clear with a green tinge. we haven't had any rain for a fortnight now and its showing on all the local rivers , they could do with a freshen up and a bit more flow.   

As i walked down its banks there was no fly to be seen on the water, and there fore no trout rising .

Water Avens

Then while setting up a fish rose tight to the foot of a tree trunk in the tail of a pool. so once set up i put on a size 12 klink , but didn't want to know, i then decided to size up to a size 10 dirty polly and try and get this stubborn fish to rise, half a dozen casts or so later nothing, i was just about to put that disturbance down to something else then up he came . He was a fine fish for a burn  too.

 First fish out the way i had steady sport taking fish not in all pools but most. Not quite the perfect spinner fall but the newly tied patterns took a few.

The woolly bugger also came in useful in a few pools , although the majority were caught on a dry. it had been a nice evening fishing , even though there was no true evening rise just the odd sporadic fish to go for.

It's Starting to Wake Up

Fishing has been pretty poor  recently , a fortnight ago, the grayling  poked fun at us , this weekend the flounders pretty much did the same.

Ive been struck down with the cold , started on Friday sore throat etc , by Sunday sore head , legs,knackered today coughing and sneezing all the time,  so i took the day off work.

  The dog was pestering me to get walked so i coincided a walk down the river with what ive grown  acustomed to as early season hatch time , thats 1pm on my local, 2pm once the clocks change , you can almost set your watch for it.  Looking at a tail of a pool a disturbance caught my eye , and sure enough it was a trout rising , and another one was doing like wise just slightly further upstream  , and in the next pool again another fish rose , to a very sparse hatch of large dark olives, great to see and with 11 days till the start of the season , looks like my fears of a late start have been put to bed.
 
It spurred me into a tying mood, i had to freshen up the big stuff, the stimulators etc flies i will use in the height of summer. So got to work.
First up were the stimulators. it's a fly thats quite enjoyable to tie, proportions seem to be quite important though it's very easy to make it look wrong. I tied mine on size 10 tiemco 200R  hooks and found for the style of fly a smaller  hackle typically  for a size 14 fly was ideal for the abdomen and a one typically for a size 12 for the thorax.

Ive only tied a handful , i reckon it's all i will need , the stimulator is a fly that looks like it has no place in a uk anglers box, but for pocket water, coloured water or for just stirring up dour trout there great!

 . Next up i thought i'd do some balloon caddis sporting some rubber legs. i have some fond memories of using these years ago on a small tumbling highland stream, these ones below are tied on #12's. 

these ones below are similar , but it was the turks tarantula that is the influence  , im just too lazy nowadays to tie it, same go's for quite a few patterns , and i doubt they are any less effective in the roll.

Other high summer candidates will be the cdc and elk, and the g&h sedge, maybe a chernobyl ant . Other than that i think the summer nights should be covered .

Did a couple pike flies too, i wanted to try out my new 4/0 hooks ,  got a few new places in mind for the pike this year , which i'm looking forward too.  

It's a start (Tying for another trout Season )

As  a trout angler i have  a preference for rivers over lochs, although hopefully this season will  see some variety with a few visits to lochs. With the season not far now  I've forced myself to have a few sessions  on the vice , not an awful lot to tie still plenty from last season of certain patterns , an hour here and there ,and  ive started to build up a stock, no flights of fancy just the workhorses that  will actually see the light of day.  

First up the turkey biot klink. These are all brown ones tied on my favourite hook the humble  Kamasan B100 these are 12's but i will tie a few 14's as well .

Next up are size 10 haresear  klinks ,  i'll go through a lot of these particularly  mid summer  onwards.

Next again very similar to the above but gives a different footprint , is the dirty Polly . Excels in turbulent water and for this you could tie the hackle more  to suit . A fly that i would reach for  in poor clarity or on waters where the fish are often reluctant to rise to a surface fly has loads of triggers big surface footprint with hackle and wing and also penetrates  the surface . The ones pictured are 10's but 12's and 14's are also useful  .

A black one in a 12 looks useful for the black terrestrial stuff, particularly hawthorn flies. And I've tied these up with a specific burn in mind.

Hawthorn fly

This one proved its worth last season when the trout were being selective when on Medium olives , seemed to be the fly of the moment on many rivers during that hatch . 

Next again a generic fly the wire nymph. This has been my bread and butter for many years , i used to tie it with a hare thorax but have since used peacock glister , both are useful but my preference is for the glister thorax, almost all i use nowadays apart from occasional wettings of the prince nymph and  peeping caddis.

That shoud be the first months covered , ive aready plenty cdc  and snowshoe patterns , and stuff for smutting fish and theres still plenty time for those high summer patterns such as  Stimulators, G&H sedges maybe the odd balloon caddis, and the CDC and elk. Maybe a woolly bugger or two would be useful . And there are also flies for lochs to tie.

Off course it wasn't all work and no play there has been the odd flight of fancy coming off the vice lately , these are with pollock in mind, i hope they like them.

Size 2/0 deceivers