Oh i do like to be beside the seaside!

The plans were in place to do a bit bass fishing, flys tied, last minute of getting  line trays assembled etc. We also had the benefit of getting some info, by an experienced saltwater fly angler, who put us right on flies materials hook sizes and gave us the general feel for the area, thankyou Colin! We also met a angler tackling up to do a bit lure fishing, and we had a good blether, it was nice to meet Martin , an obvious fishaholic , who spends a lot of his time fishing allround  the country ,  in the sea.

Unfortunately the sea was too wild to fish and it was a bit dirty, but i cannot wait to get back , when the going is good! More flies to tie , ordered up some more hooks, and converted another  basin into a line tray at work today , ...obsessed!

basin bashing!

So me and Brian on the way home decided to pop up the canal to see if we could get a pike or two. grabbed a few essentials at my house , and before long we were setting up, half the basin was covered with ice , but we had a shot in the clear half. i put  on a fire tiger jumbo braid baitfish and on my first cast fish took got off, next same result and on the third cast he was hooked , but shortly threw the hook. We did both get a few more jabs here and there. Brian decided to try one of his red and white clousers, and it proved a real hit with the jacks he landed a brace before the end of the day. If it's windy next week, and it's looking that way , might do a bit of piking on the canal , ive also a wee pond or two  in mind.

clousered!

an afternoon tying up clousers

Ive been tying up some clousers today for our saltwater trip tomorrow, used some of the hair exstension stuff and also some slinky fibre. Not sure what colours are best so tied up a variety of different colour combinations, hopefully one of them will work!

looking forward to my diamond hard kit arriving through the post so i can tie up a few surf candys too.

Hair extension Baitfish

Back on the kanekallon (Jumbo Braid ) hair extensions for some baitfish patterns. First up a couple of pike flies. Got my hands on some Deer Creek Diamond hard and i find it's much quicker setter and true to it's endorsement is "virtually" tack free. Both have gills the pink one oval the other a shell sequin.

FireTiger

Next up a couple of Saltwater  flies.

Clouser (bucktail)

surf candy

surf candy (leaded underbody)

 Had a spare hour so gave the pike flies a test on my favourite canal basin. A few takes, dropped a few but a couple of wee jacks obliged, cant wait to give these a go on the lochs this year, i'll be tying a few with rattles to help stir up dour pike as for the saltwater flies, i hope to give them a trial shortly.

hard going

We were undecided on where to fish on friday night, the main river or one of it's tribs,  so the desision was made in the car on the way down this morning and we opted for the main river which was running clear and also a wee bit lower than some of our recent visits. we did our usual through a couple of big pools, wading deep czech nymping, it's a great method if a shoal of feeding grayling is found but if like today nothing seems to be happening in a hurry it gets really boring to be honest, perhaps being full of the cold and having a slight leak in my waders didn't help but my heart just wasn't in it and after a while i suggested to Col that we go to the trib instead of more deep wading in more huge pools, Col agreed and within half an hour or so we were tackling up on a much smaller river instead.

We worked our way upstream fishing the likely pools without success, but despite the lack of grayling it was still  much more enjoyable than searching the huge pools of the main river. It was nice to see the unmistakable  blue sheen of a kingfisher, and we also startled a couple of roe deer along the bankside. I did eventualy land a grayling too from one of our favorite pools, on a wee pink beaded nymph but unfortunatly that was our only fish for the day. Grayling time for us  is just about over for another winter, might get in another trip or two in but the prospect of looking for rising trout in season ahead sounds great!

In The Bleak Mid- Winter.

Waters were fining down, a wee stream was just the ticket at 9" on the grid. When we arrived we found clarity good , and we were treated to a hard fost, classic grayling weather. It didnt take long for brian to find the fish, a lovely fish of 1 1/2 lb that took one of his bugs, which one, we don't know as the hook came out in the net.

We fished lots of other pools but had no luck, we even saw a single riser but it did not oblige.

But we kept our chins up, and brian again caught a smashing  grayling of two pound on the dot!

that was our lot for the day, 2 blanks for me on the trot, back to the drawing board for me. lots of frosty days forecast this week hopefully, it'll help shrink the big rivers.

Winter Tying

March brown emergers

Been going through a wee productive spell on the bench recently, i think the mild spells of weather have made my head rush for the  anticipation of the new trout season. Still a few patterns to tie and also a few i still have plenty of stock from last season. Heres a medley of what ive been up too.

size 16 brown thread klink

Olive(#14) and brown (#12) Turkey biot klinks

yelllow and white posted haresear klinks #10

Dirty Pollies # 10

prince nymph variants

Brown wire nymphs

DHE's #12,14,16 in olive and brown

olive and brown comparaduns

Buggers

G&H sedges

Stimulators

sheep dip!

Col and me headed back down to the river we were on last weekend hoping for some more grayling action, it was a fine sunny morning and our hopes were high.

The nice morning didn't last long though  and by early afternoon the weather took a turn for the worse with rain on the horizon and also no grayling to show for our efforts. As the rain was about to start we spotted a sheep which must have slipped in further upstream and was clearly having difficulty getting out of the river, col saved the day though and waded across the river to help it out, that was one lucky sheep!

 Soon after the sheep rescue  i landed a nice grayling on a pink beaded wire nymph but as much as we tried there was no further action.

perfect!

the rain didn't help with the river taking on a slight ting but i dont think the grayling were really in the mood today anyway.