Taf Fechan

Got a day ticket for the Taff through the Wye and Usk foundation passport scheme - £10 for 10 miles of fishing from Merthyr Tydfill AA. Far too much fishing to cover in a day so I decided on the upper reaches of the river.

After a relatively unsuccessful start to the year on some brooks closer to home, the view below was a welcome surprise.

I started off with a 9 foot tapered leader, with a small copper head nymph on the end. This way I thought I could easily switch to dry if required. The section I fished started off above a small cliff and gorge, so it was pretty deep in sections, other parts were slower and flat, with some real pocket rifles in between. I had no success for the first 30mins with a nymph, so I swapped to  a dry to see if I could tempt anything up. I had read that there were wild and spooky fish in the Taf Fechan, so stealth and presentation were key over fly choice. After no success with the dry I swapped back to the nymph, this time on a french leader - immediate success from the first pool, right at the head in the deeper oxygenated water.

Carried on with the french leader targeting the head of each pool, and got some success. All fish were 6-10" and beautifully coloured. There seems to be a pattern to the pools as well - first or second cast near the head would result in a fish, then nothing else from that pool. On to the next, same again. Best pattern was a slovak gammarus. It was fantastic fun, and I will definitely be heading back.

Cam Brook

I'd planned a Sunday fish for a few weeks, it was the second available weekend since the start of the trout season so I was keen for a full day.

Weather looked good, I was up early and by the river by 10am, not too bad for this time of year. Unfortunately the day was interrupted as I had to turn around and get home to take our poorly cat to the emergency vets (he's fine) - so I was back at the river for 2pm.

Cam brook looks like a tricky but nice little stream, difficult wading, some areas are too deep, and very close trees so it's a roll cast if you're lucky. But it looks like it holds some nice trout. As this was my first trip there it was more a reccy trip, which included slipping on the bank and takin a swim! Good to get the first one in early... Phone was wrecked when I got out, but a radiator and rice fixed it luckily.

Not a bad day, could've been better, but looks like Cam brook has potential.

May

Looking forward to May.

Idea of this fly is the tails lay flat on the water, with the thorax CDC propping up the fly like a pronounced dun.

Hook: Daiichi 1270 curved size 14
Tails: Elk hair
Body: Masterclass SLF 09
Rib: Tying thread coloured brown
Wings: 2 large CDC feathers
Thorax: Spun CDC

Stillwater Flies

Tied a bunch of lures, buzzers and crunchers for Blagdon and Chew lake. I fished these lakes when I very first started fly fishing 6 years ago. I remember taking a day off work to head to Chew for the opening day. It was blowing a gale, raining with temperatures just in the positive. I stationed myself near the lodge as I didn't know the area. where I could/couldn't fish, and generally worried I would make a fool of myself. A friendly chap next to me ensured me he was there, same spot, same wind straight in the face conditions, exactly a year before and still managed to catch. This gave me a bit of confidence, but seeing as I couldn't cast (I thought teaching myself was an excellent idea) and didn't know what flies I should use (everyone was using "something orange and bright" - which I now know were blobs) it became pretty clear early on the odds were against me.

I blanked, pretty badly. I remember standing between a group of around 8 anglers, all catching, and thinking what have I got myself into here... I only fished Chew twice, and Blagdon once all year that year, and never had a sniff of a fish. But I am hoping I can redeem myself this year. Hopefully with something below...

 Black Viva

 Crunchers (hot spot on a couple)

 Olive Minkie

 Olive Minkie, Viva, Damsel nymph and buzzers

 White Minkie

White Woolly buggers

They aren't perfect, but I am pretty happy for a first try of stillwater flies (had to make some material subs). 

Westcountry Fly Fishing

Ahead of March 15th I've been researching where I will be doing most of my fishing in the upcoming season. So far I have found excellent fishing on Dartmoor (East/West Dart and the Teign) and the Taff/Usk in South Wales (and tributaries named "Wild Streams on Wye and Usk passport scheme).

Seems to be plenty of choice going through the passport system, with tokens used throughout both West Country and Wye and Usk schemes. So it looks like I won't be joining a club this year, just deciding where to fish the day before - which has it's benefits. Should certainly challenge me as fishing styles/techniques will need to be worked out on new water each time, but hopefully it'll improve the way I look at rivers.
If anyone has some suggestions on good spots gimme a shout!

In preparation I've also been tying up some early season flies - baetis nymphs, gammarus and JT Olives shown below.

And purchased some new waders - Vision Ikon with the Hopper II boots. Very light and an excellent fit all round, pretty good first impressions. Good service from Sportfish also, free delivery and arrived with 3 days.

Hiatus and new beginning

Had a bit of a fly fishing and fly tying hiatus at the end of 2014. I'd been living in Yorkshire for four years enjoying the many fine rivers it had to offer. I moved up in 2010 for work, and loved my time there, however me and my partner had always planned to return to our roots in the West Country eventually.

So when the opportunity came up near Bristol we both took it. This meant the majority of the second half of 2014 was spent house hunting then moving, resulting in very little fishing time (and hence no blogging).

Since then it has mainly been furniture shopping and decorating, plus a return to 9-5 work from my previous shift job means fly fishing is now relegated to weekends. I will miss the amount of time off  spent fishing and tying, I will not miss nights shifts though!

Having finally found a desk and (almost) setup my study/fly tying desk, I thought I'd take some time to organise the fly boxes before the new year. There is quite a bit of space for new flies which will have to be filled before the start of the season.

Before Organisation - 8 half filled boxes, loose flies and 2 new boxes

Organised with plenty of space

Clockwise from top left - Czech nymphs, favourite bead heads, jigs and gammarus, CDC dries

Klinks and nymphs on the left, Caddis +other dries on the right

 As for fishing, I will be testing out Devon/Cornwall and South Wales on the passport scheme, and getting a permit for Dartmoor at first.

Locally is Chew and Blagdon lakes, so I'll be doing some stillwater fishing too, pretty new to it but we'll see what happens.

And I'll have to make the effort to head back to Yorkshire for at least a few days a year, just for old times sake.

RIP fujifilm...2004-2014

An excerpt from my last blog post

"Also, before purchasing a brand new DSLR then immediately dropping it in the river, I thought I'd get practice using a camera on the river which wouldn't break my heart if it took a swim."

Not two weeks after this I was fishing Cod Beck, fujifilm in back pack. I normally stash it down my waders, but I had my waterproof camera there on this day (should've been the other way around...) as I was taking some video.

Anyway, after a few hours fishing I had waded into a particularly deep section, and had to wade back out the way I had come. As I exited the water my heart sank (despite saying I wouldn't be heart broken) when I realised how wet my non-water proof back pack had become.

Needless to say the camera was soaked. I dismantled it and left it to dry for a few days, but alas she is no more.

Lessons learned? Maybe invest in a waterproof back pack, or if that isn't an option store the waterproof camera where it may get wet. Ah well, that's life.

Trusty old fujifilm

I've wanted a DSLR camera for a long time now, but its always been just a bit too expensive to treat myself too. So, as an effort to prove to myself it would be a good investment (ha!) I've been playing around with my old fujifilm, which although it's not a DSLR, at the time of purchase it was a pretty decent substitute. The only down side is it requires 4xAA batteries, and the memory card it uses is obsolete which means I can only take 26 pictures in a day (a whooping 128mb card...)

Also, before purchasing a brand new DSLR then immediately dropping it in the river, I thought I'd get practice using a camera on the river which wouldn't break my heart if it took a swim. Couple this with a few days out on the local beck and the River Swale, below are some of my amateur efforts.

Bank of the River Swale

Cream bodied nymph streamside

My attempt at shutter speed alteration

Macro crane fly

Edited to give a warmer feel

Red-legged Partridge

Macro flower

Beck trout

Easingwold countryside

CDC and Deer hair

Same trout different pose

Cream nymph again

Nothing spectacular but I'm quite happy with the outcome. I have edited a few with iPhoto, which offers all I need (or can get my head around!) at the moment.

Slovenia 2014

After the high success of the trip to Slovenia in September 2013, I decided to go again with Stuart Minnikin plus two others, Neil and Stuart J.

We stayed at Tilnik farm again, which is an amazing place. Remote, beautiful, excellent hosts in Kate and Brett plus some friendly pups.

It was another absolutely stonking trip. I had purchased a new Hardy 7'6 Jet with the CC reel especially for the trip (and beck fishing in the UK) on which I caught my biggest ever trout, a 3 1/2lb Rainbow which tore through three consecutive pools while I chased after it, before finally netting.

Revisited a beautiful mountain stream and had some very interesting hiking to get to the fishing spots! Never sweated as much in my life.

Had some fantastic food and wine, visited a local marble trout farm and had the pleasure of a guided day with Gregor Novak again.

Caught plenty of fish including nice marbles and rainbows, but still no elusive grayling (unlike Neil).

Already planning the next trip!

Fantastic welcome at Tilnik Farm 

"Small" Slovenia lunch on the first day

Fishing an urban stream...

...which produced this 3+lbs Rainbow

Another nice Rainbow

Beautiful Marble

The only Grayling of the trip

Precarious access...

...worth it

Last fish of the trip, my personal best Marble

Late April

Managed to have three days in a week on the river at the end of April, and they were all very different. Condition were similar throughout the week, low river level, although it rose towards the end of the week, over cast and around 10-15 degrees.

The first day I fished the Swale above Richmond. I've only fished it once before and had little success. There is a popular walkway along the river for most of it, and one spot is very popular for throwing sticks in rivers for dogs to retrieve. Obviously puts a dampener on the fishing so I avoid that place. There were a few fish rising so I tried my luck with a jingler, klinkhåmer and quill dry fly with no luck. Once the risers stopped I switched to a quill bead head which brought a single trout to the net. Nothing special, small 10'-er. Moved to a favourite pool below Richmond and managed two more brownies, one around the 1lb mark which jumped 3ft clean out of the water, was not expecting that response!

The next day was spent on two streams in Huddersfield. I'd fished one before after work down there and managed a decent grayling and nice trout. Fished a mixture of czech nymphing, upstream nymphing and dry fly and managed around 40 fish, which is easily the most I've ever caught in a day! Best fish of the day was a grayling around 1lb on a ryac czech nymph. Picture below is a different grayling, thought still a nice size.

 Brownie on a brown czech nymph

 Ryac larva

One of the better Graylings

Then the third day came. Back on the Swale it was obviously the river had risen a little, with a bit of colour and lot of extra power. Wading was very difficult so I had to keep to the tail of a long pool where the flow subsided. Fish were rising semi regularly but there was no obviously fly life coming of the surface. I tried a number of dry flies and emergers covering general upwind/caddis/gnat patterns but only had a few unsuccessful nips. Finally managed one grayling on a Klink, at this point my legs were numb from standing still in the water for a few hours without moving, so I called it a day.

I've now join a club with some beck fishing very close to home, so I'll be trying that out this week, if the levels are good!

Leaders

I have ordered a collection of mono spools in various strengths to start making my own leaders. I came across this leader calculator from Global Flyfisher (http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/leadercalc/download.php) about a year ago via the excellent NCA blog (http://northcountryangler.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/rolling-my-own.html) and have been toying with the idea ever since. This season I'll be testing some out.

As it is the first time I have gone for some relatively cheap on sale copolymer from Greys, from 02X down to 6X (a bargain ten spools for a tenner, 30m each), so if it turns out terribly I haven't lost much. I'll also need to add some stronger stuff, but its a decent starting point.

Most of the time while nymph fishing I'll use furled leaders from Rodney Dibble (now Luke Bannister produces them ) - the Stuarts Croft range. For dry fly fishing I've been using 9ft Orvis superstrong for years, but they are quite pricey and I seem to get through the pretty quick. So the main aim of tapering my own is for dry fly use.

So far I've made two for a trial run. One 9 feet and one 11 feet, with 3 feet tippet to be added making 12 and 14 feet in total. For these trials I have used old Orvis superstring tapered leader butts which are too short to be used any more, as currently I have no thick stuff. Not sure if it'll make any difference, but I'll be giving it a go.

Trout season 2014

19th of April before my first day of the trout season. I would normally be disappointed but an early holiday to Thailand and Cambodia means I can't really be.

I joined a club on the Swale this year for a new stretch of river. I've fished it on day tickets a few times and its excellent value for money. Arriving at around 10.45 I was very happy to see rising fish and a hatch of LDO's, and I immediately tied on a jingler I had prepared the day before for this exact reason. Cast to a rising fish with the jingler, however it just wasn't sitting right, I couldn't get the correct presentation and ended switching to a smaller imitation that sits lower in the water while resting the fish. Its my own design but nothing groundbreaking at all.

Its a simple stripped herl body with a light dun hackle clipped below the horizontal (coachman hackle in the picture above). Once the fish had risen again, I cast to it and it rose first time. I have heard many a time at this time of year people comment on striking too early, and I have been guilty of it, so I tried to stay calm. However, I was too patience (if possible) and I missed the fish. Third cast it rose again and I struck faster, a small 9-10 inch grayling, so I let myself off for missing it first time.

I saw another fish rising about 20m downstream so I waded out of the river, walked downstream of it and managed to land another, slightly bigger grayling. A couple of fellow anglers a lot further downstream were having similar luck, so I decided to start from the bottom limit of the stretch and work back up.

Switched tactics to czech nymphing and manage to land a much nicer grayling on a ryac, and lose another. The pools upstream didn't lend themselves to czech nymphing, and the hatch had died off, so I switched to a size 12 LT klink with a size 16 mary copperhead beneath. This landed quite a few fish throughout the pools on the way back up the river, the best being a grayling around 15-16 inches and I'd guess around 1 - 1.5 lbs ish. The only disappointment of the day was the lack of trout, and chatting to the other anglers only one person had landed a solitary trout. Ah well, fingers crossed for next time.