Opening Day 2013

I  was a bit hesitant whether to go out fishing at all , I'd received a email form Brian telling me the burns he had  "recced" , were coloured up with  snow melt., but what forced me out was the outlook for the week ahead which wasn't too promising with rain and snow and low temperatures forecast , today was the mild day of the week , 7 degrees and my local was running clear enough to fish though i do suspect there may have been a little snow melt present .

You can almost set your watch by the hatch , it's usually very predictable,  but today the hatch was poor only the odd Large dark olive coming off through out the few hours i was there .

I sat and waited , i had a  cast just to get the feel for it again. I walked scanning pools for risers , but nothing stirred. I was about to head for home , when  I decided just to fish the water   , i set up my usual search method   NZ style, and  i almost had a heart attack when out of the blue, a trout slurped my klink off  the surface.

A pounder

That was all i managed but it put a smile on my face , and opened my account for 2013.

pre season burn recce

With one or two burns in mind for opening day i thought i would check one of them out today with my dog Clyde. The snow on Monday has all but disappeared from where i live but this wee burn being a bit higher up still looked a wintery picture.

Clyde wasted no time in getting wet by standing on some thin ice!

despite some of the pools being iced up there's still some nice runs to fish

Clyde has a look

its running it's usual slightly murky colour

with that in mind Ive tied a few glister bugs

im not sure how responsive the trout will be with the cold water temperature but im looking forward to finding out, Clyde and i enjoyed our walk anyway,  tomorrow i think we'll check another burn out.

  

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

A Pinch of Salt

Today we headed to a bass mark, for 12pm low tide. On arrival we decided to have a shot in the rock pools with the LRF gear , and we had fun catching blennies although we are really hoping for other species such as sea scorpions to put in a appearance, though Brian thinks he may have moved one. plenty of small stuff in the pools but don't know if these are just other blennies or gobies of some sort?
here's a few captures, pink and red isome was the bait of choice.

 Between LRF ing we had a good shot for the bass the conditions looked ideal but unfortunately apart from a take we never got any action, it was though a nice day to be out casting in the salt.

Flogging away but with a Spring in our step!

Fishing in winter has been hard lately , what with snow, rain, high winds , coloured water and to be quite honest , I'm really longing for March the 15th to arrive so i can once again, cast a fly to the brownies again. Well yesterday the signs of spring was in the air in the guise of birdsong, i even had a pair of spotted woodpeckers fly over my head , just gives you a mental pickup that spring is on it's way. Tomorrows forecast ....... snow!

Snowdrops

Today found us once again in pursuit of the "Lady of the stream ". We were fishing by midday but what followed was a few cold fish less hours   , So eventually we decided to head upstream . The first pool we fished seemed barren. The next a giant of a pool  which is fairly featureless, getting in waist deep water there was only one thing for it but to search the pool methodically with our bugs  taking a pace upstream each cast and eventually i got a take and landed a bright grayling of 1lb 8oz. She had taken a tungsten beaded olive bug .

Brian started below me and a rise caught his eye , so he moved to the area and first cast took a fish. a bonny wee grayling just the ticket to lift your spirits and put a smile on your face, it's also nice to see smaller fish in the system it's not often you come across them .

A wee jewel

 we thought we might end up getting a succession of these fish being shoal fish  but despite seeing another riser  and throwing the kitchen sink at them we could not tempt one .

We then walked downstream to fish a pool we've never fished before , but anglers had beaten us too it, turned out to be a few gents we met before, we talked about fishing mostly about pike , and by the time we had finished it was time for home , not the most succesful of trips,  quite hard work but i really quite enjoyed it.

all the eggs in one basket

 Pleasingly from a fishing point of view there hasn't been much of a thaw as yet so the river was still running clear and at a good height for fishing today.

 After a while czech nymphing through a pool i thought i had snagged the bottom again but this time the bottom moved! i caught sight of the big Grayling on the end but wasn't feeling at all confident about how good the hook hold was, the fish moved down stream but i was in an awkward position to follow him down, Col was on hand below me though and i was relieved to see the big grayling in his net!

the fly came out in the net so not sure what he took

2lb 12oz







after a while and no further offers we decided on a move and fished a couple of pools that have produced some good grayling for us in the past, unfortunately this time we drew a blank so in the late afternoon we found ourselves back where we started the day.It didn't take long  for my indicator to dip this time and i lifted into what felt like another hefty fish. A nervous fight took place with the fish staying deep but after a while we got our first glimpse of another monster Grayling, it seemed to take an age before she was ready and Col slipped the net under her.

Just shy of 3lb



after all the excitement i gave Col the wee coral egg fly to try and no sooner had we started to fish again and he was into another big grayling

2lb 10oz on the egg pattern again

we fished on a bit after that but not surprisingly with grayling of this size that was our lot for the day,i hear rain tonight so looks like we timed it right.