It's rather late on a Saturday evening, and really I ought to be out drinking, trying to cop off with random unsuspecting lasses, having punch ups over god knows what or throwing up into a drain, same as pretty much every other lad my age. Admittedly that can be the case rather too often on a weekend when I'm up at University, but I'm at home and tomorrow I'm going fishing - the thought alone of tying up leaders with a hangover is enough to make me feel ill. So, rather than kicking seven colours of shite out of my liver, I've been burning the midnight oil tying up a number of variations on a tungsten head PTN in sizes 14 and 16. As you can see above, pretty rough work and I definitely need more practice, but hopefully the trout will get the general idea and humour me. The Wharfe left me watterlicked for a fourth session in a row on Thursday by the way - lots of LDOs, not a single rising fish! Outrageous in such lovely weather. Hopefully the Aire will be more generous... five blanks on the bounce could see me nipping to Homebase for a length of stout rope!
Well, I'm still struggling to get off the mark for the season. It's getting rather worrying actually! Yes, I've had two fish on that chilly opening day session at Ullswater, but I don't really feel settled until I've had a fish from a river. Three sessions so far, three blanks. One in a blizzard on the Cumbrian Eamont, one on the Wharfe last Friday (lots of hatching LDOs, no rising fish) and then Tuesday on the Aire, although that trip was almost a success. Tuesday was a catch up session with my good pike fishing pal Tom, just throwing a few spinners whilst I assessed the stretch of river (a regular spot for Tom) for bug-wafting potential. One major positive was there were a number of areas of great looking trout water, as well as some slower, more typical coarse fishing swims. Another positive was that at around 3 p.m. a number of fish, including some weighty looking fellas, began to rise to a good hatch of midges although there were no olives to be seen. Heartening to see real signs of life for the first time this year, but at the same time it would have been far better had there been a griffiths gnat on the end of my line rather than a 3/4 inch floating rapala! Happily I did connect with a fish in some deep, steady water - a fit little brownie of around 3/4 lb to the pound mark I think, then again, I didn't get him close enough to find out before he shook himself free... yeah, so like I said, all in all the session was almost a success...
I've been dicking about some more with my headcam on my recent outings, and I'm fairly pleased with the it. Good image quality at 1080p for the price you pay, and the sound quality seems better than that of the more expensive 'GoPro' cameras. Hopefully the next fish I film on it will make it to the net.
Hopefully I'll be out on the Wharfe again today, and then the Aire on Sunday with Tom (with proper gear this time!), so keep an eye out and expect a post or two if things pan out well.
The current extent of my fly tying gear: a crap vice, substandard tools, thread, a handful of beads and some scraps of pheasant tail. A few purchases in order then...
Over the last few months I've been finding it harder and harder to justify to myself why I don't tie my own flies. It really doesn't make any sense, and I suppose I've finally come to accept it's down to laziness and/or a lack of willing to learn - not traits I want to transfer into the rest of my fishing, that's for sure!
The advantages of tying your own are undeniable once you get the hang of it. You can create flies for any situation whenever you need them, you can make tweaks to the style/weight etc. of patterns rather than being stuck with the 'get what you're given' approach of big fly dealers (some professional fly dressers are excellent though), and most importantly from my perspective, you can create more flies for less cash.
One of my rare, hamfisted attempts at a nymph. Some practice needed!
So, no more excuses. Time to start learning. I've purchased a few bits and bats to bulk out my currently rather sorry looking tying armoury, and hopefully they'll be with me later in the week. I figured I'd start off with some pheasant tail nymphs and other weighted patterns since they come across as the most straightforward river flies to knock up, plus a large amount of my fishing at the moment involves shortline nymphing and duo techniques, so the more choices I put in my box the better. Once I've got the hang of that, I'll start tinkering with the more fiddly wets and dries.
Outside of the world of fly fishing I suppose that I'm something of a - and I really hate to use the expression - 'music fan'. Ugh, just the sight of the phrase on the screen in front of me makes me feel bilious for a plethora of reasons far too petty and off-topic to grumble about here, but nevertheless it's the simplest way of putting it. Let's just summarise the potential book's worth of drivel (I really could babble for hours, but this is hardly the place or the audience) by saying I likes me a bit o' music. My sphere of interest encompasses anything from classical to ska, metal to celtic and, in some extreme cases, dubstep. From a fairly young age though I've been particularly taken with punk music - something about the whole 'young, stupid and pissed off about... well, we're not too sure' vibe always appealed to me on a level that other genres never quite managed. It can be angry, aggressive, erratic, but at the same time retains a carefree, youthful energy which is perhaps lacking in my staple diet of death and thrash metal. Punk never gets too serious, and when you're a kid (hark the wisdom of the man of nineteen summers) what is there to be serious about? Nothing. To be honest, if, as I nose my way out of the nursery stream into the raging torrent of adult life, I ever start to take things too seriously, if I lose that feeling of inner punk, It'll feel like I've gone very wrong somewhere down the line.
"Yeah yeah, you're a punk fan, we get it. Now stop being such a tooth-aching sycophant and get to the point."
Apologies, reader, but it's a genuinely emotive subject for me! You'll sooner see me getting dewy eyed listening to a favourite album rediscovered in a forgotten attic box than over the predictable 'reunited against all the odds' scene you see at the end of every film ever. My girlfriend has pointed out to me on a number of occasions that I can be an insensitive git to be with in the cinema, as it happens. But yes, sorry, my point...
Pegboy, formed in Chicago in the early 90s, have grown to become a favourite band of mine since I stumbled across them on one of my regular trawls through the darkest recesses of Youtube a year or two ago. I've also been a follower for some time of a chap called Robert Thompson, who runs the site Third Year Fly Fisher. He used to put up monthly blog-type videos of his fishing exploits interspersed with nice compilations of footage. In the last couple of years though he's started making longer films, good ones at that. So, imagine my surprise when the trailer below popped up!
Yep, it would appear Pegboy (or at least half of Pegboy plus their pal Herb from Rights Of The Accused) are fly fishers. Fate? Well I don't believe in that crap, but a happy coincidence at least. I emailed Robert and asked about getting hold of a copy. I was given a price, and it was in the post the next day. It arrived surprisingly quickly actually - only a week, which from the States isn't bad.
So, how was it? Well, for me? Fantastic, but that could be the 'music fan' (again... just no) in me talking. It's really a documentary about the band tied together by fly fishing, but there's plenty there to please the angling eye, with wonderful shots of small stream brown and brook trout fishing. Reverb is actually only an extra on the DVD of Robert's film 'Heart of The Driftless' which takes a more full on, and again excellent look at the same streams in the Driftless area in the upper American Midwest, and even if the whole punk thing doesn't float your boat, HOTD is worth the price all on its own.
What really struck a chord with me in Reverb, though, more than the fishing, more than the music, was actually seeing Larry and Joe now as forty-somethings looking back on their career. Quite a shock at first when you're used to the angry young guys from the music videos. The fact was though, as much as time had passed and they'd changed as people, the spark was still there. As soon as they jump up on stage the youth bursts back out, and so it does when they're together chasing trout. This brings me full circle, back to my thoughts at the start of this post - a post which has turned out to be a hell of a lot longer than I was expecting, might I add! Punk spirit. Never take anything too seriously, never lose your playful side. In a little over a month I turn twenty. I can hear your laughter, but shit, twenty! Somehow for the first time it just feels like a proper number, no more messing about. Double that and you're forty. Presuming I make it to forty, where will I be? Life gets more serious the older you get. The miserable bastards on the trains at rush hour are testament to that. Will my inner punk be squashed out of me by taxes, bills and bairns? So long as I keep a fly rod close at hand and a good river nearby, I think it'll survive. As I've said, it's all about not taking things too seriously, and as much as you can concentrate hard with fishing - apply all your wit to it, hone your skills - you can never start to take it too seriously. Where would the fun in that be? No matter what happens, even if I have to sell all my CDs to pay the rent, I'll always be able to keep the inner punk hidden away in there somewhere, and let him loose to swear at tangled leaders and curse fly-snatching branches.
Ullswater can be a stunning place, as this February snap shows...
The Cumbrian trout season opened last Friday, and true to form when I arrived on the banks of Ullswater (sort of my local when I'm up here) at around 7 a.m. I was met with a mixture of sleet, rain and a howling wind... yeah. Not ideal. But March is an unpredictable time of year and you simply have to make the best of the conditions you're faced with. At least that's the way I rationalised it in my head as I rigged up my rod, gritting my teeth in the icy spring air. A legered worm was the method for the day - the fly seemed pointless given the conditions, and really I only planned to fish a couple of hours to appease the gods of the water. I punched my bait out hard to reach deeper water, set the rod down and began my long, chilly vigil.
Come opening day, conditions weren't so pleasant - I took this shot during a rare break in the wind and sleet.
The depressing thing about fishing a long ribbon lake like Ullswater in bad weather is that you can see the next squall or snow flurry coming from upwind about 5 minutes before it hits you. It's useful in the sense that it gives you time to wrap up and prepare, but it taints even the sunniest spell with a sense of futility as all too soon you see the next wall of black cloud bearing down on you. In normal circumstances this just adds to the drama of the place, but on a cold, biteless March morning it saps one's morale at a rate that cannot be stemmed even by the liberal application of tea, whisky and cigarettes. Today was certainly one of those days, and it wasn't long before I grew weary of the site of my stubbornly static rod tip. I couldn't believe when I checked the time that it was barely past 8 a.m.. A bus was due shortly and I was sorely tempted to catch it, but I talked myself around - a couple more hours, make the trip worth it at least. Stay positive. Rebait, recast, keep hoping. Stay positive. Turn your back to the wind (and was that hail now?). Pull down the hat. Turn up the collar. And for God's sake, stay positive.
Still time dragged on in this manner as I refused to accept the likelihood of an opening day blank. Surely there had to be something out there looking for a spot of breakfast? I was sure the wind had eased off, and perhaps the temperature had risen a couple of degrees, but maybe that was the contents of my now empty hip flask talking. Still, I could have sworn that I had a rattle on my rod tip just as this change in conditions was coming about... hmm, perhaps not. I tightened the line and waited. A few minutes passed, then all at once the tip sprang abruptly straight and I struck into a definite solid resistance. Not a leviathan, but after the dismal start to the day, the pulsing of the rod as the trout finned determinedly out in the deeps felt positively miraculous. Soon it was on the bank - a stunning opening day brownie, slim from the winter but wonderfully marked and fin-perfect.
Against the odds: the first of the season.
After performing the necessary (I do like to keep the odd fish, and the first takeable fish of the year tends to find its way to my pan) and stowing the prize safely in my bag I checked my watch - half past nine. Time for another fish before my next bus, maybe? I hooked up a new worm and sent another prospecting cast over the ledge. This time the bait had barely settled before I had another thumping bite, and soon another sprightly, golden trout lay on the bank. Funny what can happen when you force yourself to be positive...
The fruits of a positive mental attitude: a brace of opening day Ullswater trout.
I originally meant to post about this trip last month, but once again a combination of mounting University work, trying to think of a dissertation proposal and general laziness set me back. Nevertheless, here I am now, and here's the lowdown...
At the start of February I popped home for my girlfriend's birthday, and having squirmed my way back into the good books I managed to cadge a lift down to the River Wharfe for a morning chasing ladies, also providing me with a chance to test out my new Contour Roam 2 headcam. There had been a substantial amount of rain, so I opted for the age old Yorkshire tactic of trotted worm. The weather was dire and I'd been expecting to take a bit of a whipping, but to my surprise and delight I had a day of days with 11 gorgeous Grayling up to around a pound and a half. Not bad for a flying two or three hour session! Below are some photos from the day, plus some video footage I shot with the new headcam, hope you enjoy it!
New gadget: the Contour headcam. Takes a wee while to stop feeling self conscious about having it strapped to the side of your head!
On target with one of the first ladies of the session...
... But bumping into a few of these chaps was unavoidable.
Plumping for Pike: With the rivers out of action, the coarse fishing gear has been brought out.
Aquatically speaking, the last few months of 2012 have been very predictable indeed, if only in a somewhat roundabout and convoluted sense of the word. If it's not been raining (I think the rainy season in both Yorkshire and Cumbria started around the year 1500 and has just trundled on since) it's either been snowing, freezing or blowing a gale - often a combination of the three. Many of the Cumbrian lakes have spent days entombed in ice, and if there was a period of settled conditions, you could bet your house, children, and the contents of your vintage caviar cellar that the day you planned to string up your rod the rivers would rise two feet and hold nothing but the prospect of dead sheep and sanitary towels. On the few occasions I've been able to walk the banks of my beloved Wharfe and assess the state of affairs, it has been like meeting an old friend after many years apart and realising you no longer have anything in common. Long, sedate pools which come alive in the balmy summer evenings with the oily head-and-tail rises of glorious, uncatchable leviathans now boil and surge with an alien malice. The gently poppling, sun-dappled riffles of my memory now snarl, tearing away at the vulnerable banks, whilst on a bad day, bouldered rapids can now take on the guise of the middle reaches of the Zambezi. When the waters finally drop (hopefully some time before March - I have plans, you know) and the old friend and I once more find some common ground, there's a good chance that they'll have undergone a serious facelift. Whether a happy improvement or otherwise is impossible to predict, but either way it'll take some getting used to.
Nevertheless, whilst in my angling life I increasingly find myself attempting to navigate a small boat up a river of excrement with no means of propulsion, it's not all bad, is it? Those four blokes on horseback didn't pop round to engineer the destruction of our entire civilisation, I've not bickered with my girlfriend any more than usual, there are still a couple of pubs where I can get a pint of decent ale for under three quid, and the price of Lambert & Butler hasn't rocketed too dramatically. Besides, all this water has washed me away towards places I've rarely fished with any conviction since my early teens, and landed me fortuitously on the bank beside and equally mad keen worm drowner of a similar age to myself - Tom, master pike catcher.
I found Tom, or rather he found me, through my video based messing around on Youtube (here's a link incase you're interested). He too dabbles in video making, and after realising we lived about ten minutes apart, he got in touch with me about having a session together and the possibility of shooting a few videos. I liked the idea and we got chatting. The conversation was easy, and we agreed to have a session the next time I was home.
So, around came Christmas once again, and I returned to Bradford with a head full of lecture notes it didn't want to process and the prospect of January exams looming over me as they still do now - writing your blog seems so much more exciting when there's something else you should be doing, doesn't it? But now, for the first time since early November, fishing was on the cards. I spoke to Tom and we both agreed the rivers were 'nae use to man nor beast', to use the Northern lingo, and that given the current weather patterns our best bet was to target some pike in the local canal, where Tom and a few other anglers had been braving the weather and had banked a number of double figure fish, including a chunky fifteen pounder for Tom himself.
"Sounds good" I said, "Let's do it". And so last Sunday, in a wind that could have toppled statues, I found myself hunkered down on the canal towpath before first light, pitching a dead roach as close to the moored boats as I dared. Tom seemed confident we would hit a few fish before long as he baited two rods with sprats, fiddled with his bite alarms, then went about the business of attempting to catch some of the smaller locals to sacrifice in the name of Esox. When his pal Dave arrived in his van a while after us, however, he seemed rather more sceptical. In fact, as the wind began to howl harder and harder, I distinctly remember his reaction being along the lines of 'why the bloody hell would you bother fishing on a day like this?'. Somewhere in the back of my head I felt he had a point. Nevertheless, I took heart in Tom's buoyant optimism and went to aid him in his livebait quest. He'd been struggling up to this point with a lot of missed bites, so I suggested the operation perhaps needed a fly fisher's more delicate touch. Sure enough, Tom handed me the rod and first cast, after a deft flick tight to the flaking bow of an old barge, I successfully shepherded a small, flashing roach to hand. I offered it to Tom who immediately swapped one of his ledgered sprats for the little fish, whose day was going from bad to worse, recast and waited in poised expectancy. Five minutes passed before the alarm let out a single bleep followed by a gentle wiggling of the rod tip. I was about to suggest it might just be the livebait working rather than a more sinister presence when the rod hooped round and Tom locked into the first fish of the day. It stayed deep at first, shaking its head furiously and doing its best to dive into the sanctuary of the boats, but soon enough it broke surface in a shower of spray and was drawn reluctantly over the waiting net; a solid fish of around six pounds. Not a monster, but as Tom unhooked it (it was mercifully benign on the bank) I had to pause for a moment to take in its perfect torpedo-like form - pike of all sizes have a certain gravitas about them which other fish do not with their crocodilian features and huge fins. They are pure predatory perfection. We slipped him back and he paused briefly to collect himself before rocketing back to his lair.
Tom, getting into the festive spirit, displays the first of the day: a solid six pounder.
After the excitement, with the rods reset with deadbaits for the time being, we settled down for a quick cup of tea, and I took the chance to muse briefly on my surroundings. It was very surreal, after spending the last few seasons mainly on Yorkshire's pretty trout streams, never too far from the public but always with a degree of peace and quiet, surrounded by nature, to find myself casting a line in such an urban setting. Even on the stretches of canal I usually fish, a short walk will find you in relatively rural surroundings, but here I felt boxed in and almost on show, with the concrete towpath backing straight onto a housing block, a hotel and flats looming on the opposite bank, and a road bridge rumbling on my left. Yet somehow, perhaps due to the rare social aspect on the day (fishing is almost always a solitary pastime for me) along with the obvious pikey potential of the area, I felt rather comfortable perched on my stool, watching my bright float riding on the ripples, smoking and chatting about the prospects for the coming hours.
The Pike float rides tantalisingly on the ripples...
My pleasant reverie was broken abruptly by a shout from down the bank, and I turned to see Dave's rod buckled in two as he tussled with an evidently substantial fish. We reached him in time to see the fish boil on the surface before surging away strongly again. A few tense minutes followed before a semblance of control was gained and Tom was able to bundle the fish into the net. On the mat it looked impressive - heavy set and very deep indeed. We were all rather surprised when it only weighed 11lb 8oz. Still, a good fish for a canal, and its tiger-like fins and marbled flanks were a sight to behold.
The business end of the 11 pounder as Dave does the honours with the hooks.
So, two fish on the bank, and I was the only one left sitting on a blank - no matter! Plenty of time yet. I went back to my spot, switched to a fresh bait, then went back to the serious business of hunting livebaits. Soon both myself and Tom had livebaits fishing by the barges - a roach for me and a little skimmer bream for him. We were now both fishing running ledger rigs, as although the aesthetic quality of watching a pike float suddenly spring to life and plunge beneath the surface is undeniable, given the unrelenting gale, a tethered bait was evidently the more practical choice on the day. Predictably though it was Tom's bait which was snapped up almost instantly, and I was soon helping him hoist ashore a small feisty jack pike around the three to four pound mark, which he soon followed with another of similar stamp. With the light fading, I was beginning to wonder if I would be returning home with the shame of a blank hanging over me. Spurred on my the urge to avoid this, I moved my bait along to a small gap between two boats, a perfect ambush spot. I set everything up, tightened down and waited. What seemed like an age went by, and I was pondering the idea of a recast when a faint twitch gradually developed into an all-out run. I lurched upon the rod and lifted into a bucking, solid resistance. It came to the surface quickly and was evidently not large, but the hook hold looked tenuous, so I ushered it as quickly and carefully as possible into the net, and lifted out a glorious, beautiful, miraculous blank saving fish
.
One of a pair of smaller fish for Tom.
A brilliant, blank saving four pounder for me!
After that relief, we decided to head for home, but agreed to meet up again after Christmas. On boxing day we did just that, this time adopting a more roving approach with float fished livebaits. We had a good day, with four fish for me and three for tom. The only issue was that none of the fish weighed over three pounds! Still, better than no fish at all, and it's all good fun. We've agreed to meet up again after the new year. Hopefully we'll winkle out a couple of the big girls!
Here's some video I shot on out first day. Rough stuff as usual but hopefully you enjoy it!
So you see, though the weather continues to be about as welcome as a bag of grapeshot to the nads, I've discovered a silver lining behind the endless clouds, finding a new ally in my addiction, and getting a chance to play with the predators for the first time in rather too long. Best of all, Tom's keen to learn more of the art of the fly, so that should lead to a few forays in the spring... if the rivers ever decide to stop their quest to turn the entire Humber basin into an inland sea, that is.
Happy New Year, folks! And tight lines for 2013!
Eric.
