Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2018 i Trout & Salmon

GETTING to the Wandle is easy via Colliers Wood and Morden Tube stations on the Northern line, or Earlsfield and Hackbridge overland stations. WANDSWORTH, Merton and Sutton Councils allow free fishing along most parts of the river with an Environment Agency rod licence. Careful catch-and-release is highly encouraged to protect recovering populations of fish (they’re also likely to be loaded with heavy metals from the river’s postindustrial legacy). THE Wandle Trust runs monthly river clean-ups: a great way to give something back, and get to know new areas. Sign up for email updates at www.wandletrust.org THE Wandle Piscators co-ordinate riverfly monitoring and other fishing activities on the Wandle. Visit www.wandlepiscators.net…

AS A BREED, fly-fishers tend to overcomplicate techniques. Spider patterns are tied with only a piece of thread and a few turns of hackle and yet they often stump newcomers because the experienced fishers they listen to insist that fishing with them is a form of black magic. Seasoned anglers can spread all kinds of hype about these flies. They’d have you believe they’re the preserve of fishers with eagle-eyed vision and that you’ll only be rewarded if you pitch the flies upstream. But neither is true. Instead of heeding this nonsense, arm yourself with a fundamental understanding of how these wet-flies work and then tackle the ever-changing conditions by making educated choices. Here I’ve answered some common Spider questions with straightforward advice that should bring you success. Can I…

Q CAN YOU SUGGEST an effective alternative to cul-de-canard (CDC) that will keep emerger and shuttlecock patterns afloat? I am frustrated by the time that’s needed to return CDC patterns to an effective state after catching a fish. Richard Coombs, Peterborough A: I HAVE TRIED many alternative materials. Foam must be unnaturally large to keep the fly in the surface. A smaller amount may keep it afloat in a glass by the tying bench, but in fishing conditions it will soon sink. However, trout, especially freshly stocked fish, will occasionally come for a large-headed foam Suspender. Snowshoe rabbit or hare can work well on river flies, especially those tied for rough streams. Unfortunately, the fur lacks the barbs found on the fibres of a CDC feather and you must tie…

FLY-TYERS ARE AN odd bunch. Imagining new flies - and how to apply new materials - is a full-time obsession. Many flies turn out to be rubbish. I’ve certainly created several “innovations” that will remain in my workshop, never to see the light of day. But every now and then, in keeping with the infinite monkey theorem about monkeys at typewriters eventually writing Shakespeare, we produce something that makes it out of the vice and on to the water. We probably should have weightier things on our minds than how to apply fur and feather to metal tubes and hooks, but it’s fun and beats thinking about Brexit and Trump. I had a good laugh recently when I spoke to Iain Wilson, of the Borders Gunroom shop on the Tweed,…

 “The Ageing Progenitor does port – because he has the oldest collection; and chestnut stuffing because he has the patience to peel chestnuts” IT IS ALWAYS difficult, at this time of the year, to think of a new and exciting way to address the whole concept of Christmas. The central purpose of traditions might reasonably be said to be their unchanging regularity. Christmas comes but once a year but it will be on the same day and be celebrated in the same way as last Christmas and the Christmas before that and the one before that stretching back as far as the memory can reach. Not like Easter, then, which bounces about the calendar like a golf ball in a squash court before settling somewhere about the middle of April.…

“A prolonged battle … with a big and stubborn fish can bring forth the deepest emotions” IN ANGLING TERMS - and only in angling terms I assure you - I consider myself special, and so should you if, between earning a living and, perhaps, raising a family, your time is spent largely alone in search of fish in wild, wild places - from a mountain tarn to a deserted urban river where big, late-evening roach rise to leave a single bubble by the drifting burger-boxes. When I fish such places there’s something that gives me a nudge now and then, a reminder that I’m utterly alone and unknown to the world … that I could die here, in the Fens or on a Cumbrian hillside, and lay undiscovered for months…

IT’S JUST AFTER sunset at the end of a long, hot day at your desk, and you’re grateful to be standing knee-deep in the rippling ten-degree water of a little chalk river. A few yards upstream, there’s a cloud of spinners dancing over a raft of ranunculus, and a fish swirling at the surface beside a branch that’s been pinned to the bank to give the current an extra kick of turbulence as it ripples off the back of the weedbed. Throughout most hours of daylight, gin-clear and spooky don’t begin to describe it: this river still flows from the chalk springs that once forced Frederic Halford to learn to fish a dry-fly like the locals. But as some of us have discovered in the last couple of blue-winged olive…

The Wandle project’s success has inspired the Wild Trout Trust’s Trout in the Town programme in urban areas across the UK: HONLEY, HOLME AND HOLMFIRTH IN YORKSHIRE: Holme Valley Vision: river corridor improvements near Huddersfield. MANCHESTER: Salford Friendly Anglers: restoring the Irwell, Irk and wider Mersey system with the newly-formed Mersey Rivers Trust. NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME: restoring the Lyme Brook in the headwaters of the Trent, Staffs. RADSTOCK: improving urban sections of the Wellow Brook with the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust. SHEFFIELD: SPRITE: litter cleanups, Tenkara in the Town, and clearing invasive species WINCANTON: CATCH: rubbish removal, Mayfly in the Classroom and fish-passage improvements in Somerset. For more information, visit www.wildtrout.org/content/trout-town…

“Whether it’s buy or tie, flies must be replaced because the ones you lost or destroyed were the good ones” IT’S DARK OUT there, the snowdrops may be on their way but they’re not yet in bloom. There’s snow on the hills and grue in the river. You may be one of the lucky ones, heading south for the rivers of New Zealand or Argentina, or you may, like me, be thinking of some winter pike on the fly. Or maybe it’s time to catch up on some reading with a dram by the fire, and there’s always the grayling. No doubt about it, fishing can be all year round, if that’s what you want. But I like to go with the seasons and, much as I love the river…

HOW DO YOU choose a hook for tying salmon flies? There are so many good brands - Partridge, Veniard, Fulling Mill, Loop - how do you pick between them and which will put more fish on the bank and give better results at the tying bench? Modern hooks are made with high-tech machinery and are rarely misshapen, poorly finished or faulty. But given that hooks are the most important link between the angler and the fish I’m amazed that some anglers still choose cheap and inferior models to save a few pennies, while they’ll rarely compromise on the other tackle they use or scrimp on the beats that they fish. Don’t lose the fish of a lifetime by using an inferior hook. Many fishermen have favourite brands - I’ll also…

“The idea behind the Stewart-style Cruncher came from W.C. Stewart’s range of famous nymphs” I HAVE FAR too many nymphs. Probably far too many flies in general. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Simplicity may be the cornerstone of our sport, but without the variety provided by a well-stocked fly-box, heads would soon drop on “slow” days. Sometimes we need options to give us the belief that we can change things for the better. On the other hand, flies aren’t the be-all and end-all of a successful day: there are other, often more important matters to consider, such as line choice, where we fish and how we retrieve. Fly choice is seldom, if ever, the whole story behind a dry net. It’s strange that I have so many nymphs.…

ENGLISH PARTRIDGE £25 With the shooting season in full swing, now is the time to stock up on gamebird feathers. Cookshill Fly-Tying gets its birds from estate shoots around the UK. These superb-quality, selected partridge skins from shoots on the South Downs, Lincolnshire Wolds and Staffordshire are fully cured and ready for tying. Both cock and hen skins are available. Hen partridges have smaller, darker feathers with stronger detail, while the cock’s feathers are larger and paler. Use them for Spiders or “soft-hackle” patterns, wet-flies, nymphs and Shrimps. Partridge feathers are truly versatile and their mottled feathers are a must for those who tie suggestive trout flies. Contact: Cookshill Fly Tying. Tel: 01782 388 382. Web: cookshill-flytying.co.uk PEACOCK NECK FEATHERS £3 These iridescent blue feathers are all the…

GRADE “A” OPPORTUNITY IN GALLOWAY In south-west Scotland is the historic Hensol Estate, beside the Black Water of Dee river and Loch Ken, which provides a variety of sporting opportunities. Mossdale is 1½ miles and Castle Douglas nine. At its core is Hensol House, a category A-listed house of Tudor/Gothic design, providing four reception rooms, a conservatory, ten bedrooms and four bathrooms. There are also four cottages, a farmhouse and a walled garden. Land extends to 1,068 acres including 352 acres of amenity and commercial woodland. There is an established pheasant shoot providing driven and walked-up days, duck flighting, rough shooting for pigeon, snipe and woodcock, and roe deer stalking. The estate has two miles of single bank on the river, and details of the fishing rights are available from…

IZAAK WALTON is said to have written about Wandle trout “with spots like a tortoise”. He didn’t, but one of his editors did, in a footnote to much later 1833-5 editions of The Compleat Angler. HORATIO NELSON (right) is reputed to have fished the Wandle before his death at the Battle of Trafalgar. It’s a great story, but all the evidence suggests his mistress Emma Hamilton’s husband, Sir William, was a far keener angler. WILLIAM MORRIS favoured the special quality of Wandle water for his dyeing processes, and stocked the Merton Abbey stretch of the river with perch from the upper Thames. FREDERIC HALFORD fished the river from 1868 to 1881, and recorded in his Angler’s Autobiography how he learned how to fish an upstream dry-fly from the Wandle’s expert…

SITTING AROUND THE table that night, as we discussed great grayling flies, were some Grayling Society (GS) Stalwarts: Steve Rhodes, Steve Skuce and Roger Smith. They are GS ex-chairmen, area secretaries, co-founders of angling guiding companies and authors. Between them they’ve amassed nearly 150 years’ experience of fishing for grayling and have caught and released grayling in at least nine different countries. Strong drink flowed. Because the Stalwarts can become unruly I set parameters for our discussion. Whatever Great Grayling Flies you suggest, I said, each pattern must have caught at least 50 grayling and done so in at least two different countries within or outside the UK. Further, the Stalwarts were asked to select their three best flies and then to select one - the pattern they’d carry if,…

REMEMBERING JOSEPH BRANDIE I was sad to read Joe’s obituary in the December issue. One memory of him stands out clearly. In the late ’70s we were fishing the Easter Elchies beat of the Spey, opposite Upper Arndilly where Joe fished and gillied. While we lunched on the banks of the main pool, Red Craig, Joe was fishing opposite. We asked him if he would like to join us for a dram. It was too far for him to drive around, so we said if he could cast across we would give him a drink. The full running Spey is a big river, but Joe skilfully put his fly-line straight on to our bank. A bottle was duly attached and landed. We, of course, could not cast across to retrieve…

ASK AGIT SET-UP will definitely justify its selection in the early season. Made up of a running line, a short, powerful belly and fast-sinking tip, this set-up is fit for purpose when rivers are running high and cold during the first months of the year. The main benefits of fishing a skagit are the opportunity to cast a long way and the ability to present heavy flies deep through the stream using tungsten T-class sinking tips. Very effective in the early season when wading deep or fishing from a boat, they require the use of sustained-anchor casts such as the double spey and circle C to optimise their performance. The combined length of the belly and tip is noticeably shorter than a standard shooting head and waterborne casts anchor the…

“He is convinced these additions take a good fly and make it great” Q HOW IMPORTANT is it to fish the “right” colour of fly? Do you choose a fly according to the colour of the water? And what are the most effective colours of fly? Marjorie Grant, by email A: I’M SURE it’s very important to fish the right colour of fly. But I’m equally sure that whenever we start making rules like what colour of fly to fish when and where, the salmon have a habit of proving the opposite. Indeed, there can be few sports that throw up as many exceptions to the rules as fly fishing for salmon. That aside, most salmon fishers accept the theory that we should fish a bright fly when the water…

HOW IT’S MADE “There is always a cup of tea and a warm welcome waiting for customers” “IT’S NOT VISIBLE from the road,” Kay Potter had told me, just as she tells all the visitors who come to Bruce & Walker to be fitted for a rod. The “new” factory (it has been running for 20 years) in the village of Upwood, Cambridgeshire is only a few hundred yards from the old one, where Mr Bruce and Mr Walker first went into the business of making fishing rods together in 1959. In 1983, Brian Potter joined the company to learn the craft of rod-making (having married Kay, who is founder Ken Walker’s daughter). We were greeted with the enthusiasm of people doing what they love, and a fabulous home-made…

FOR THE TROUT ANGLER An incredible 150 flies, plus a slim Storafly medium fly box. Each selection includes 50 wet-flies, 50 dry-flies and 50 nymphs. Plenty of patterns to cover a wide range of fishing situations for trout on river, loch and stillwater. FOR THE SALMON FISHER A fantastic assortment of 30 modern patterns, plus a large Devlin fly box. This selection includes popular doubles, Ally’s Shrimps and 10 tube-flies (with Loop double hooks) in various sizes and weights. There are options for the whole season from big, early spring flies to delicate low-water doubles. HOW TO ORDER WHEN ORDERING QUOTE “T&S FLIES OFFER” CODE “0079” AND CHOOSE THE TROUT OR SALMON SELECTION. Postage and packing is £6.99. Tel: 0141 212 8880. Fax: 0141 331 6340. E-mail: sales@fishingmegastore.com Order online: www.gac.fishing/0079TS Post:…

England & Wales BORDER ESK WHILE IT was not the best of seasons, the Esk did have its moments. Some good catches were made on the lower river at times. Among the late-season catches on the Willow Pool and Cauldron was a 5 lb grilse caught by Geoff Harvey on fly. Duncan McCorkindale had a 10 lb salmon, also from the Willow Pool, on spinner. Alan Herd caught one of the same weight from the Cauldron on worm. Peter Wormald landed salmon of 15 lb and 14 lb on fly from the Willow Pool. John Smith had a 17 lb salmon and a 4 lb grilse on fly from the Willow, and Robert Cohen landed a 12 lb salmon on fly. Fishing the Gilnockie Tower beat, Ed Taylor caught a…