Call of the Coast

It's been a difficult  couple of weeks to get any type of fishing in, last weekend was off the back of a really wet spell which caused flooding in many areas, ended up at a tackle shop (angling active) , for a few fly tying purchases , mainly buck tails and a fly wallet , followed by a few fruitless half hearted casts on a muddy pond for pike.  This weekend we had grayling planned with conditions being frosty it seemed a good option , but then on Friday night it rained for 3 hours , looking at the conditions we decided for a change and go for the bass , sure enough going down towards our location the rivers were out of condition, but unfortunately a north wind also put those plans  to bed, we then tried the canal but it was frozen and as i type it's snowing , So no fishing of any sort to post about.

Ive been spending a wee bit time at the vice though, mainly tying up saltwater patterns for next year, it's the  form of fishing i really crave at the moment, my heads rarely been out of  Lefty Kreh's "Saltwater Fly patterns" book, dreaming of and planning future trips for next year, digging out the OS maps looking for rock marks etc , with possibilities of  bass , mackerel , pollack, coal fish, sea trout and maybe even flounder   on the cards.

Ive also been doing a wee bit dying with certain patterns in mind and i think the efforts have been worthwhile despite dying my fingers every colour of the rainbow during the process.  First i halved a Metz silver badger cape dying one half hot orange. and also dyed a few grizzle hackles hot pink, chartreuse , and teal blue. these
were mainly for flanking  feathers for deceivers.

Ive stayed pretty much to the tried and  tested patterns , the Clousers , deceivers and half and halves in colours and sizes suited for species of baitfish (sprats , sand eels, launce) or preferred attractor colours of the quarry. Here's a few of my efforts. First up the deceivers.

Deceivers

I just had to include what looks to be almost considered the standard pattern of white over lay ed with chartreuse buck tail with it's red crystal flash beard , I've dressed it on a size 2. The other two pictured i had with loose sprat imitations in mind dressed on size 4 hooks in grey and white and aqua and white. I guess any colour which takes your fancy can be used or more importantly what catches the the fishes eye .


  Next up are the clousers,there are  many ways to tie them up, with all materials under the hook, the tail or along  the shank, or perhaps the best known way with the white on top and contrasting colour on the bottom bearing in mind that clousers swim upside down.i guess they give them slightly different tapers . Traditionally buck tail was the material  used to tie these and i must admit i do think they look the part.

Buck tail Clousers (3 styles)

But theres no restrictions, and with the countless synthetic materials available to the saltwater/pike fly tyer today anything go's like frizz fibre, fish-hair, supreme hair , H2o's slinky fibre or flash n' slinky etc,  but here I've used kanekallon hair extensions (aka jumbo braid) which is much better value and IMO just as good as the above it also comes in a huge array of colours some more useful than others .I guess one advantage synthetics have over buck tail is they can be tied really long. 

Synthetic hair Clousers

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Other clousers that will be in my box next year will be flash based  clousers, i had a bit success earlier on in the year with a mixed blend of pearl gold and silver.To add to those i got hold of some micro tinsel from Castle feathers , they do quite a spectrum of colours in this material and I'll have to add to my colours i currently have shortly as i really like the look of it .

Flash Clousers

So that's the trusty clousers sorted for now anyway.

Another  lot I'm really quite excited about trying, are the half and halves, that's half deceiver half Clouser and is a genuine pattern from the inventors Lefty Kreh and Bob Clouser not some dodgy hybrid  concocted in my head . Ive tied mine slightly different from the examples in the book , but i think they shouldn't be any worse for that.

The orange and black ones are tied very much with Pollack in mind , as I'm told that combi as well as all-black is a good option.  The above are tied on sizes 1/0 and 2 .

A few surf candies wont go a miss.

Last of all I've done a few gurglers, just in case theres some good surface blitzes to take advantage of.

A bit of time on the vice at this time of year can be  time well spent, hopefully it'll pay dividends  come next summer. Just hope we get a break in the weather soon.

F.A (Flattieholics Anonymous)

It had been nearly two weeks since  my last Flattie, so i needed to feed the habit. Bait was required and i drew a blank in the supermarket so i gambled with the fishmongers in the high street in Portobello where i was fishing , they had one mackerel and i made up the rest of my bait with a few sides of herring.

I was fishing about 30 minutes after low tide with a relatively calm sea, a set up in a nice looking crease that caught my eye and soon i took a wee flounder.

Off the mark i was thinking they were going to come thick and fast but i was wrong i moved closer to the burn and took another. But   it was slow going.

I have a hunch  my bait wasn't up to scratch today , the mackerel looked a bit dull or maybe the flatties  were having a off day one thing noticeable was despite it being calm it was a big tide.

Before i decided to call it a day i hooked into something different , i was hoping it was a bass , but no a sea trout that was festooned with sea lice. One of these days i will get a bass from these beaches!

tinsel traditionals

With the darker nights kicking in ive had a wee inclination to tie up some tinsel bodied traditionals in the way of a change, there not flies I'll use very often although a couple of lochs have been on my mind whilst tying them.

The loch of Stenness in Orkney with the stones of Stenness in the background



this loch is brackish and garish patterns are recommended for the resident browns and the sea trout which enter the loch. Ive only caught a few wee sea trout on the handful of times Ive fished here, but its one of those lochs where the next cast could be to a monster,  i look forward to fishing there again next year, so a good reason to tie up some tinsel traditionals.  

silver cardinal

Stenness stinger

bloody butcher

Ive also tied a couple of gold bodied patterns which are probably more at home on the next door neighbour of Stenness, the loch of Harray.

Harray is on the left, Stenness on the right

   

the Dunkeld

Cinnamon and gold

 the trout are more numerous in Harray compared to Stenness, and lightning quick on the take!

last season i never fished any lochs for trout,  next season i intend to put that right.   





beach bums

With all the rain during the week there was no chance of  any Grayling fishing yesterday so we were back on the beach  yet again  more flounder fishing! unlike last weekend there wasn't a big surf so ounce and a half leads was all that was required, we fished with two hook flappers and i had one rod set up with a flowing trace in the hope of a decent Turbot.

Viper's Bugloss grows on the salt marsh next to the beach



there's something addictive about watching the rod tips for bites

Col was doing well, it seemed like every time i looked round he was into yet another flounder

i was struggling on the other hand, only managing the odd flounder, but did get a nice one on the flowing trace

later in the afternoon i had a wee move up the beach to a bit of rippled sand  and started to pick up a few more flounder. Unfortunately no sign of  any Turbot today,big or small, we'll just have to keep trying until we get a good one.

the beach did throw up one surprise at the days end, a fine sea trout

i wish i had caught it on the fly rod rather than a  2-4 oz bass rod! still nice to see though.

  

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Flattie Bashing in Fife

Back on our favourite Flounder beach we arrived at 8:30am just before low tide . Once the tide changed the bites started to come thick and fast a quickly we were getting plenty fish.

The wind got up a few hours into fishing , and sport  slowed so we decided on a move , but that proved fruitless so we went back to our usual spot and again we started getting fish again.

Double shot

 Bites were hard to detect in the wind , regular checks were required to see if anything had taken the fish baits. One bite that was noticeable though was a thump on my rod followed by a slack line , i reeled in felt the fish saw it jump and thought i was into a bass, but no it turned out to be a seatrout!

After that as the tide came in we knew in our hearts time was up despite it being 2 hours till high tide, for some reason it seems to stop producing once the water gets so high up the beach.

So our tally was 17 flounder and a single seatrout . We kept 3 flounders from our catch today , brian kindly donated his catch, and tonight i had a flounder feast of Southern fried flounder gougons, and Flounder in a lemon and black crushed pepper breadcrumb gougons. It was delicious!

Back on the Local

It's been a long time since my last trip to my local. High water levels or poor clarity and piking are a few   reasons for lack of visits. Today i managed to fit a trip in. It was great plenty action on the duo, i went for a GH harelug with a peacock glister thorax , held up by a size 10 klink , but in some bits i had to sacle down to a  size 16 klink, whilst in others they were more confident in taking whatever was put in front of them. I must have had around 30-40 brownies up to a pound ,

a single seatrout ,

and a rarity a few salmon parr,

which reminds me , the next spate should follow a trip down with a few Allys shrimps cause you just never know....... !