Fisherman's handbook fish

In the late 70's my brother and I collected the fisherman's handbook, a weekly publication covering coarse , sea and game fishing. Each week would feature a new species with a little information on their habitat and how to catch them, all very exciting for a young boy who had only caught the odd brownie from the local burn.

The capture of some of these fish seemed highly unlikely at the time, a lot of them still do, but through the years a few have been ticked of the list. I remember my first Roach from a tiny pond in the middle of a farmers field, or my first Perch from a local quarry like it was yesterday. The great thing is it's just as exciting to capture new species now as it was then, recent captures such as Bass and Turbot, all be it small have been a real thrill.

yesterday Col and i fished for some typical Fisherman's handbook type fish!

my biggest bream to date! 

lovely markings on this roach, or is there a bit of something else in there too?

the Ide wasn't  in the handbook's as it wasn't over here in the 70's, seems to be a popular stocking choice in coarse fisheries these days, although their fun enough to catch, for me they don't hold the same attraction as the beautiful roach.

      

hopefully there'll be some more new captures in the years to come, got one or two in mind already! 

Trotting on the Tay

Today we decided  to do a bit trotting, and headed to the mighty Tay, we thought it might be a good bet with river levels still being high in most areas, and sure enough it was high but clear. We picked different swims , and pretty much stuck to them, first to put in appearance were the out of season trout and a few were pretty muckle , the sort of fish you would cherish in season  and on the fly but we were after grayling.

The grayling though were proving elusive , though we both lost fish , and they could have been grayling, it was though a lovely day , quite warm in the sun , so warm in fact my maggots in my bait pouch were changing to casters.

Eventually though i did manage  a couple of modest grayling  one male and one female.

  Brian lost  a grayling in the gloaming just before we called it a day.

An enjoyable day , one thing i really must get though is a centre-pin reel for this type  of fishing every year i say i will and never do, it would make the trotting experience more pleasurable .

on coarse for the new year

Yesterday we went to Eliburn reservoir for a spot of coarse fishing to end the year, Col got of to a good start with a nice Ide

After a wee while with no further bites we decided to move to a deeper swim and  settled down for the afternoon. The fishing was very slow but we were entertained by a kingfisher on the opposite bank which was having more success than us by the look of it. if the fish weren't showing any interest in our maggots a cheeky wee Robin certainly was!

 he was well fed for the rest of the afternoon

Col changed his shotting so the hook bait was taking longer to reach the bottom, this seemed to work and we started to get a fish or two.

a wee Perch to save the blank for me

a good sized Roach for Col

a wee Bream

    







the beautiful Roach are my favourite silverfish

I hooked into something which felt quite big near the end of the afternoon, it was taking line from the reel and staying deep,  i never got a glimpse of it before the size 20 hook sprang back at me, never mind! 

All the best for the new year.



shiver me silvers

With cabin fever setting in and no fish in over a month i needed to get out fishing, the weather as usual was pretty miserable so a local reservoir for some coarse fishing seemed like the safest bet for the chance of a fish  . At my chosen swim i  set up with a loaded waggler with maggots for bait, introducing some free offerings every other cast to try and get the fish on the feed. An hour or so into the session my float still hadn't  registered a bite and to make matters worse it started raining heavily . I was shivering away feeling pretty uncomfortable when the float finely slide under and a wee perch was brought to hand



normally i would curse the pest wee perch but today i was so pleased to catch him, this spurred me on a bit and i forgot about how cold and miserable i was feeling, for a while anyway! i was beginning to get the odd bite and soon added a lovely roach to the catch











followed by a wee bream or bream hybrid of some sort?

 

i noticed an angler on the opposite bank from me catching the odd Ide and was hoping they would put in an appearance in my swim too,unfortunately it wasn't to be though, but Inbetween shivering away a few more of the above three were welcome captures before the end of play in the late afternoon.     



Not Waving but Drowning

  The weather is really making fools out of us over the last month or so. The rain fell last night,  which would help thaw out the currently frozen   ponds/ canal etc it did however put the rivers up so what was left was a trip to the seaside for a shot at the flatties. Unfortunately  the sea was wild , and coloured ,and carrying a  lot of weed so after giving it a couple of hours we agreed we were flogging a dead horse.We are ready to hoist the white flag and surrender our fishing gear in exchange for golf clubs , the current scenario reminds me of that  poem based on the life of Sylvia Plath , a misunderstood  cry for help "Not Waving but Drowning  .

 Anyway back home and my 3d epoxy  eyes arrived through the letter box  , so thought I'd spend a bit time on the bench as i had a pattern in mind .

I was "googling" for my swff  trip next year , and on a sea fishing forum i came across some interesting info, that there was many small 4-8oz mackerel around and the big pollack were preying   on them .  With this in mind So i got busy on the vice.

These are what i came up with dressed on a 2/0 saltwater hook. Perhaps a close copy isn't really required especially when the damage on those particular fish was done with a jelly worm tipped with mackerel strip, but , to me it's one of the pleasures of fly fishing /fly tying is matching the hatch.

hopefully the weather will improve enough for some fishing in the new year.


    

Bend-backs

Still in swff mode, although i really should be churning off the nymphs and dries for next seasons trout fishing.

Weedguards are not a thing you hear much about in uk swff , i dont know why that is as pollack like to live amongst kelp, perhaps it's the hooking issue? Anyway one pattern got me thinking, the bend-back design.

the bend-back design works by masking the hook with the materials yet doesnt lose it's hooking power.

Any material can be used but i decided on Bucktail simply because of its stiffness.

First up was bendin the hook to shape with pliers.

  It's very easy to take it too far .

It's another pattern that needs to be tied upside down. i'm fairly pleased with the results but only time will tell how effective they are in there roll, and handful of these will be tied anyway in various colours.

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

.  

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.