I've decided to try and resurrect this blog by managing more than an annual post. I have mixed feelings about the whole blogging thing as it seems to me to be, at worst a narcissistic thing which people engage in in order to present a distorted image of themselves to the world in which they are better, more successful, wise etc.... than in real life. But then hey what's wrong with that? Also at best I have read some great stuff and viewed some equally great images that have entertained and inspired me. So here we go again, I will fail of course, and fall back into posting massively infrequently, but here goes.

Scotland again.

Peter and I headed for Lairg again on our annual long distance angling trip. He has already described this on the Burrator Fly Fishers blog so I will not go into detail about the unusual ending of that week, other than to say he became seriously ill and scared the shit out of me (though it has to be said it must have been much more frightening for him). Peters account is here http://burratorflyfishers.blogspot.co.uk/.
For my part, whilst the fishing was cut short, and we never got to fish Craggie, which was a real disappointment, we still managed some good fishing. Amongst the highlights were the days I fished Loch Shin from the bank. This was something of a revelation. I caught a lot of fish on dry flies, more than I have ever managed in single trip, and I feel that for a while I really got in the zone with this type of fishing and learned a lot.

I also fished some of the rivers. The Shin was engrossing to fish. One afternoon I tied some very basic sedge imitations, walked out the Caravan door, which is on the banks of the Shin, and within minutes caught a fish on a fly I had just tied. They were dark lean fish which often took the flies with a wild abandon that made up for my inept presentation and strike timing abilities. I also fished some tiny burns with bright little trout that I caught on tiny klinkhammers. I loved this fishing, lost in the landscape on the banks of a little river which, in my imagination, can hardly ever have been fished.

I can't wait to go back.

I thought I would post about my trip to Ireland in Sept. Myself and two friends, brothers Phil and Kevin Stuckey, headed to the Beara Peninsula. This is a rugged finger of rock that pokes out into the North Atlantic between Bantry Bay to the south and the Kenmare Estuary to the north. The three of us have been going to this area for several years now to fish rock marks, mostly with soft plastic lures on 40gm spinning rods for large Pollack, Wrasse and anything else that will take a lure. We also do a bit of bottom fishing for Conger, Ling and other species and float fishing for Mullet and this year Trigger Fish. We had a great time catching Pollack to over 11lbs from the rocks, loads of Wrasse and some big Conger. Mullet proved hard to tempt though Phil and Kev managed a few from a deep water mark. The Trigger fish were weird and we caught quite a few. It has to be said these do not present much of an angling challenge, on the day we encountered them, using mackerel as bait, we caught and returned every fish in the shoal before they wised up and departed. I recommend Beara, the scenery is superb and the fishing terrific, though as can be seen from the photos many of the marks are rugged and hard to access requiring fairly long hikes over rough ground. I have caught quite a few fish on fly, I've included one photo from a previous trip. Didn't get any on this trip though it has to be said I was not trying very hard.

Beara

This is an account of my first trip to Beara. This trip was made with two of my main angling companions, Phil and Kev Stuckey, this makes it sound as if I have many angling companions, I don't, I hate other people and will will walk many miles to avoid them, however Phil and Kev occasionally force me to go fishing with them. This was a great trip and there were many memorable moments, however a few high points for me were spinning for Pollock with Phil from a rocky shelf at a place called Fair Head (I think). We both took a fish first cast, then second, then third. The pressure built as we waited to see who would break the spell with a blank cast. These were Pollock up to five pounds, ripping line off light spinning reels loaded with 15lb braid. We got to eight casts a piece and Phil blew it when his lure (a dart sand eel) came back without a fish attached. I had one more and then it was over, some crucial point in the tide seemed to reached and after a few more casts all went quiet and we stopped for a cup of tea. A second memorable moment was fishing alone from some low reefs near Eyries. I was casting a fly (home tied sand eel imitation) across a gully, small Pollock kept hitting it without hooking up. I could see them throwing themselves at the fly as I lifted it over a kelp fringed reef about ten yards out. Finally one became attached and a fish of about a pound gave me a spirited fight before being landed. I briefly admired the fish feeling chuffed with my first Irish Pollock on a fly. I returned it and cast again hoping to contact another. Again just as I lifted the fly over the reef it was grabbed and solid contact with a fish was made, very solid contact, this fish was huge! It tore off boring deep for the safety of the reef. I knew I couldn’t give it much line, if you let these fish get into the weed its game over. The rod hooped into its full test curve as the fish ran to my right towards the shore end of the gully, somehow scrambling along the rocky outcrop I was fishing from I horsed the fish into a narrow gap in the reef and suddenly in was in front of me in shallow water. Keeping a tight line I managed a slow fairly undignified slide into the water next to the fish dumped the rod and grabbed it by the bottom lip. This fish was seven pounds, I know not huge by some standards but to catch it under these circumstances from a tiny gully, was without doubt one of the greatest thrills of my fishing life. I was tingling after returning the fish and for at least an hour afterwards. A third memorable feature of our week, certainly for Phil and Kev was my cooking. I cooked most evening meals, mostly because I am a control freak and hate washing up. I would describe my food as “very sustaining”, but I will leave it to them to confirm and expand upon the memorable nature of my culinary skills, Kev certainly often spent a lot of time in the toilet after dinner but I didn’t take it personally I just think he wanted some time alone. Mullet fishing was good though fishing from the little pier at Dursey was a bit scary when trying to land a fish. Slippery sharp rock about twenty meters above a tide race certainly concentrates the mind when leaning down on your belly with a long handled net trying to scoop a fish off the top of a swell. Great fun though and we had an excellent hectic couple of hours catching over a dozen fish up to about three pounds. It was only because of Kevs massive avons (Fnarr! Fnarr!) that we could fish there at all. These floats really are something, made out of an entire Balsa trunk, Thor Heyerdahl could probably have crossed the Pacific on one. They were the only thing that we could hold back in the tide to present a bait at the depth the fish were feeding at. They would also have come in handy if a ship had started sinking in Dursey Sound, the crew could have used one as a life raft. Berea was a beautiful wild place, the people we met were friendly and Castletown the main settlement is a great little place with everything you need. My only criticism is that though the pubs are good, Irish beer really is bad. All that rubbish about Guinness being different over there, no its not, its all made in the same massive factory as the stuff we drink at home, and its just as horrible over there as it is here, though that’s not a view I expressed whilst in the Pub in Eyries. The alternatives are Carling Black label or a foul brew called Smithwicks. Anyway beer aside I recommend Beara. Get your self over there for a week.

Cape Cod

Went to Cape Cod at the end of June, it was a disaster, boiling hot, no fish, I mean really no fish at all!! not for me anyway, the two guys with me, Phil and Kev caught two and three respectively, so that's a total of five fish between three of us, fishing for what was many many hours. Maybe its because we were crap, especially me, but I've been there before and fished in the few hours available on a family holiday, at the wrong time and wherever I could manage rather than researched marks. I caught more than double our total catch of both Stripers and Blues, and even a couple of Fluke. I caught fish on flies and plugs and generally got excited about the place. Well I'm not excited anymore. We had a good time, and went to some great places to blank but I won't be going back, not for the fishing anyway.

“if I’m too busy to fish then I’m too busy”

I am not very good at this blogging business. No blogs for ages. Life has got in the way of fishing a bit. Even though I have been stressed up to the eyeballs by work and dealing with family strife in the shape of my mothers decline into deep depression I have managed a couple of trips and I realise they have helped me sort out what has been a difficult time. Someone once said (Tom McGuane I think) “if I’m too busy to fish then I’m too busy” and he’s right. So I headed for the West Dart on a blustery wet Saturday. I am not good at this type of fly-fishing, actually I’m not good at any type of fly-fishing but I am worst at this type. I started at Two Bridges and walked downstream. With a stiff breeze in my face I started to fish my way back up. Really awkward fishing this and after about half an hour I gave up. I had managed to get a couple of fish to come to the fly but as usual missed the take. I headed for Hexworthy Bridge and spent the next the next five hours working my way upstream. This part of the Dart is a revelation. It’s like a secret River. So hard to get to that I’m sure it’s rarely fished. Much of the River is a boulder filled tunnel in the trees and half the fun is clambering about to get into a position to fish the little pockets and riffles that might hold fish. I had reread Anne Voss Barks “West Country Fly Fishing” recently and following that book’s advice I concentrated on fishing the likely spots rather than looking for rising fish. Again I missed take after take on an Elk Hair Caddis, fish coming from the depths of tiny pools between rocks to grab the fly but always without getting hooked. I struck fast and I struck slow, it made no difference. This was driving me mad, which considering I was nearly there anyway when I started wasn’t good. So I put on a tiny weighted nymph and hooked a fish first cast. Good fish this, about 12oz, and it came off. I was stoic, sort of. Walking back to the car I got lost and had to ford the River twice but driving back home I realised for six hours or so all I had really thought about was fishing and now I was content, I felt better.

Childhood Tench and Bad Bobbies

I am quite old now (nearly fifty) and have fished since I was twelve. I am not a”natural” angler. Any success I have is through sticking at it and very gradually learning new things. By “very gradually” I mean being totally shit at something for ages, possibly years and then, often quite suddenly, getting it and applying it successfully (a bit successfully sometimes). An example is tench fishing when I was a kid. Myself and friends used to fish a series of shallow weed choked ponds with a good number of large Tench. Standard approach developed by the “natural” anglers amongst my peers was to either freeline or use a tiny float with bread flake. Lob the thing in along with a bit of ground bait and wait for bubbles and mud to start rising up through the two feet of gin clear water. Many Tench were caught by this method though not by me. I fished that place for three years and never caught one. A few years back I returned as an adult and much more experienced angler and caught three in an afternoon.

I think I will add in bits of my personal angling history to this blog as I go along but for now that will do.

I want to relate a conversation I had with an angler at a local reservoir. I had just caught a fish on what was a uniformly tough day for fly fishing for Rainbows. By that I mean it was not just me being hopeless, hardly anyone seemed to be catching anything. He watched me unhook the fish and asked what fly I was using, “green and black booby”, “oh on a full sinker I suppose” was the reply, he went on to tell me that he did not like fishing with buoyant flies on sinking lines “I catch all my fish on a floater using small flies” he told me. I am a sensitive soul and can over interpret / invent peoples hidden meanings but this guy was definitely letting me know that using boobies on a sinker was in his opinion only one up from throwing in a stick of dynamite. I experience a flash of irritation and thought about saying “well this place is hardly the Test is it” but instead went for grinning smiling and shrugging as he floated off on a cloud of superiority. Thinking about it afterwards though it struck me that he had showed me a Dwail Bach as an example of one of his small flies. Now I tie my own flies and the Booby I was using was tied on a size ten, his Dwail Bach was on a twelve. He was using a long leader to fish the thing at some depth so I am popping up a fly to within a couple of feet of his drifting fly dangling from the surface. We were both using flies that are very general imitations of something that might be alive and good to eat from a fishy point of view. Now maybe I am missing something, but really what’s the difference? The sinker gave me more control of a very slow retrieve and the depth at which I was fishing and above all it worked!! He hadn’t caught anything! Maybe I am getting too worked up about this, I need to calm down, i’m going off to practice my breathing exercises in a darkened room.

Cheers

Jon