Wet & Wild on the Exe
It has been another year of unseasonable weather patterns. One minute we were fearing a drought and the possibility of requiring only slippers to wade, the next our drying room is filled with the smell of damp wading jackets. Where did the summer go? In all honesty bright blue skies and sunshine are not ideal fishing conditions but then neither is the requirement to wear thermals under waders to stay warm in August!
But enough complaining. I have to say that this year has been a great season for big fish and Friday last was no exception. My guests for the day were Jim Pool and JJ from the South East of England, which has witnessed more than its fair share of precipitation in recent weeks. So much so that I received a couple of nervous emails from Jim requesting a plan B if A fell flat on its face. I was keen to stick with plan A as during our correspondence I was surprised to see that the golden orb had decided to put in an appearance. The local web cam also beamed a reasonable river condition back to my laptop, a little high but certainly fishable and the gauges showed that the levels were falling. Even so I went to bed crossing my fingers.
The next morning I wondered if plan A, a trip to the lower Exe, was indeed flawed. The sun was well and truly hidden, masked by a thick grey sky which refused to cease pouring copious amounts of rain across the region. During breakfast I tentatively navigated to the webcam, fearing the worse. Instead I was pleasantly surprised to find that the river levels had in fact dropped some more. Result! At least Jim and JJ would get some fishing today. But for how long?
Fishing is all about preparation, especially when working as a guide and in particular if adverse weather conditions are to be dealt with. Boxes were stocked with heavy bugs and large dry flies the night before the trip and 10′ #5 rods packed just in case. On the way to the venue I collected hot pies from our local butcher, stocked some beer in the cooler and arrived at our meeting point with time to spare. When the guys arrived our first conversations were unsurprisingly weather related.
No going back now, the guys pulled on waders and we set off in haste … the river could blow at any moment. The web cam findings were confirmed and instantly confidence levels were boosted. Were we going to experience some good sport; even in these conditions? I will let the pictures do the talking!
Drenched but very happy. Jim Pool beats the weather and this stunning River Exe Grayling.
Jim had in fact already got off the mark with a couple of 8″ Browns taken on a Baetis pattern which was pleasing considering the conditions. However the good old French Nymph fished New Zealand style accounted for this superb fish around lunchtime … note the rain in the background. We continued fishing, leaving the pies in the truck!
Who cares about the weather?! JJ looks very pleased with his biggest Grayling to date.
That proved to be a good move. I guided JJ into a run just above Jim and before long his French Nymph had been spotted by this superb fish in peak condition.
Bigger again! Another Grayling for Jim.
My picture does not do this fish justice. I think this was down to a mixture of excitement and trying to keep the lens free of water!!! This was seriously fat fish and awesome to see these specimens in such good condition. Heading towards the magical 2lb mark and caught once again on a French Nymph not far from Jim’s first fish.
Wow! Plan A comes together as JJ lands his best ever West Country Wild Brown Trout
I had set JJ up with an extremely long dropper (4′ +) section hanging from his indicator fly and finished it off with one of our secret Orange rubber legs nymphs, a serious killer this season. I had waded JJ into a deep section of water after we had seen a big rise but covering the area with a dry repeatedly produced nothing, so we changed to sub surface tactics. This was the result … and still it rains!
Jim gets in on the Trout action
After a late lunch washed down with a cold beer (should have been soup, or hot chocolate!) we fished the middle to upper section. Fish were caught but nothing to rival the previous specimens, although we did manage to get the dry to work. The river had started to show signs of colour and was definitely cooling, especially after one particular deluge! It was so heavy I could do nothing but giggle uncontrollably! We all looked like drowned rats and questioned our sanity if only for a moment. Perseverance can and will pay off though and Jim finished off the session with this reasonable fish.
So even in such extreme conditions (it did not stop raining all day!!!) our wonderful West Country venues can still produce the results. To be honest I reckon the guys would have been happy with a few palm sized fish for their efforts. Well done to them for facing the weather and sticking with the original plan, it certainly paid off … even if it was a little wet and wild!
The Dirty Pink Shrimp
This is the first post in the new fly pattern section of my blog and I have dedicated it to the Dirty Pink Shrimp.
What a Fly! It may have been more obvious to pick a Black Buzzer, a Hares Ear or even a Cats Whisker, but for me the Dirty Pink Shrimp has become a “go to pattern” whenever I manage to break away from the shop for a Grayling session.
There are a ton of Pink Shrimp varieties available but the version pictured here has become my firm favourite. Not over tied, heavy enough to sink quickly and constructed on a quality barbless hook by Fulling Mill who launched their Tactical Series Flies in 2010.
It is versatile too. Give the Pink Shrimp a go by sight fishing to Grayling on chalk streams or rig up a multi fly Czech style leader for spate rivers. Mix the patterns up using this latter technique, alternating the Shrimp between droppers and you will be amazed how often this fish puller gets snaffled …. Trout love them to!
When sight fishing chalk-streams such as the Anton in Hampshire I have watched as heavily fished Grayling have staunchly refused even the most accurately positioned general nymph imitation but bolted several feet to intercept a Pink Shrimp. I have even witnessed them fighting over this fly as one fish sucks it in, spits it out and another woofs it. Exciting stuff!
Of course it is not a miracle pattern (Is there one? I hope not!) and it pays to have plenty of different sizes, weights and shades to cope with whatever your venue decides to throw your way. As with all imitative patterns aim for the most natural presentation which tends to be dead drift, although try imparting a little life to with the odd sudden strike while fishing Czech style or a smooth “induced take” lift when sight fishing clear water. Couple the Pink Shrimp with a decent quality fluorocarbon and for ultimate control try using a 10’0″ or even 11’0″ rod.
Click Here to see the Dirty Pink Shrimp at Hart Flyshop
Learning about the Upstream Nymph
On Friday I was thinking about the Internet and how it is helping to forward all kinds of fishing. People are meeting, going fishing, talking about tackle, tactics and all manner of other stuff via social media, blogs, forums etc. David Burton brought up a very interesting point in his comment about that post which you can see here. He said that we use the Internet to “virtually” fish when time does not allow us to head to the waters edge. Too true! In a nutshell I guess we would all love to go fishing everyday but the simple fact is we have to work. Is that a groan I hear!? “You go fishing everyday Nick!” I would be the first to put my hands up and say I have a great job but the fact is that guiding is very different to actually “going fishing”. That’s another post, right now I am thinking about Grayling, Nymphs and Fishing upstream.
I had been relishing the thought of heading to the Anton since we set the trip up almost a year ago. I have guided a lot of chalkstreams and fished them of course. But the Anton is different. I have guided there and watched clients catch a bunch of fish, but in fact had never caught a fish on the Westover Farm beat myself, because I have never fished the venue! That all changed on Saturday.
Fishing with a Pink Shrimp (technically not a Nymph!) from the new Tactical Range by Fulling Mill we all enjoyed some superb Grayling action, fishing mainly short line, upstream. Check out some photos here and here. Now on our spate rivers I often fish (and guide) upstream with a nymph (such as a Copper John), set below a dry fly acting as an indicator. This is deadly in the fast running streams but the slow moving chalkstream allows for some proper “traditional” upstream nymphing.
Other than picking up a few fish off the top on a CDC BWO, I opted to fish a long fluorocarbon leader and see how many ways I could tempt a fish to pick up my fly. Flicking well ahead of a target fish it was all about line control. Get the depth right, watch the speed and observe the fish. Sometimes the takes were obvious as a greedy Grayling charged over and chowed the weighted Shrimp. In the shade I watched for the flicker of a white mouth. If that didn’t work I applied a little sweep of the rod, watching the fish and the line for signs of a take which may have been a savage stab or a very subtle stop. Sometimes the line just felt a little “heavy”.
Whatever happened my reaction to any or all of the above was a smooth lift. By the end of the day I was having such a great time that I was left wishing for more fishing and more light, the days are just so short at this time of year! Thankfully I am back off to the Anton on Thursday and although I won’t be guiding not fishing I will get just as much pleasure out of showing my guest for the day how to fish this challenging but highly addictive tactic.
What would we do without information super fishing?
Yesterday, I took some time out from a busy day working on our new website, sat down and finally set up a facebook page which you can see here. It really set me thinking. What would we anglers do without the Internet? It has changed our lives.
This season I have frequently used the network of web cameras set up by the clever guys at Farson Digital. There are around 24 of them in England now, spying on rivers such as the Exe, Tamar & Lyn in the South right up to the Tees, Wear and Tyne in the North. See the cameras here. If you fish in Scotland then there are a further ten cameras set on famous venues such as the Tweed, Spey and Deveron. Just recently I visited this latter river for a week, but probably spent at least a month before that regularly checking the water height and condition! For guiding purposes the cameras have proved invaluable as the live stream refreshes every ten seconds, allowing me to ascertain the exact state of the river. In the past I would have to make a few telephone calls or just take a chance.
This weekend I am off to the Anton River in Hampshire with a bunch of guys. I gave David Burton a shout through Twitter, within seconds he had replied and a few emails later the day was arranged. I even downloaded a PDF map from the guys at Famous Fishing
who offer the finest chalkstream fishing available … take a look at the website!
(Above) The Anton. A traditional chalkstream in beautiful English countryside. Far removed from today’s technology and yet more readily available because of it.
While in the process of arranging this trip I decided to check out Davids recent Twitter posts and clicked on a link to this site. Its a little off the wall, but then with a name like Fat Guy Fly Fishing you may expect that! There are just so many blogs out there now offering viewpoints, tackle advice, tactical thoughts and inspiration that its amazing that we ever manage to go fishing. During the last couple if years I have neglected my own blog and really regret it. One guy who certainly hasn’t is Henry Gilbey who surely has THE lure fishing resource online now. There is a whole community on their discussing fish, tactics, tackle … the problem of lure addiction and of course, metal!
I was looking at Henrys blog last night when Skype came to life and my great friend Chappie Chapman appeared ….all the way from Christchurch, New Zealand. We chatted away for well over an hour, about fishing of course and began hatching a plan for a trip. I showed him a copy of Adventure Fishing over the webcam built into my laptop while chowing on my dinner and at the same time dropped a line to James Dawkins who had just sent me a direct message from Twitter to say he was off to Alderney.
So I guess you could say I spent an evening virtually fishing. And that set me thinking about something else. Would our great sport be as advanced as it is now if the Internet had never been invented?
Pretty Fly Weekend
There is a huge amount going for fishing in general these days and blogs, social networks and forums are all doing their bit to help. I rarely if ever post on forums but now and again I stumble across a thread that is running close to all out war as yet another piscatorial warrior has their say.
I guess that the web allows for this and fair enough, freedom of speech is important. However, I can’t help but think that plenty of these unseen wannabe journalists seem to be forgetting that the subject they are discussing is supposed to be …. FUN. Take this weekend for example, to celebrate my 35th birthday I headed off with my better half in the Rado. That was fun, until we hit the M5 and one of the worst rain storms for years hit the South West. But undeterred we continued towards our destination, The Bull Hotel in Fairford, Gloucester.
Upon arrival we met up with a great bunch of people who had also descended on the hotel in pursuit of fun. This was soon forthcoming in the form of many pints of bitter, which was not only fun but helped me to forget the previous few hours dodging articulated lorries, excess surface water and a number of collisions! Sat in the toasty warm lounge laughter ensued as we prepared ourselves for a couple of days on the River Coln. The forecasts were not looking good but it is amazing what a few pints does for the confidence!
We awoke to blue skies and sun, the 3B bitter had worked! Full English down and it was off to the river. This is where the fun really began as we realised that our general attire would probably not go down well with the type of traditional angler who seems to think fishing is about “the proper way to do things” rather than “fun”. Take a look.
Above: Fly fishing newbie Loz, fast becoming fly fishing junkie. Baseball cap, shades, a pair of fake breasts and rod over the shoulder … on a chalkstream … in England? My god, what next, a nymph on the end of the leader?
Above: Loz again, striking a pose. Could we see NDubz out on the bank soon?
Above: Dave demonstrates how to hold the rod when the fish needs two hands.
Above: Paul and the hip flask, possibly the most traditional part of the day …. and a lot of fun. Note the current rod over the shoulder look.
Above: I am a fan of indicator fishing, in fact I love it. If its good enough for the guides in Montana than its good enough for me. Here I am covertly carrying Strike Out yarn. Possibly the look of 2010?
Above: And if that doesn’t work, hide it under a Buff.
Above: In between the childish giggling and gangsta fly fishing imagery we did find some time to wet a line. And it was damn tough! The water was coloured due to heavy rainfall and at times we were lashed by gales, but we stuck in a full day session and some Grayling did succumb. Here is the best fish of the trip to Daves rod. A very special specimen as it is his first ever Grayling.
It had been a wet, fairly unproductive weekend of fly fishing. In fact I reckon I have caught more Grayling in 5 minutes on a Southern Chalkstream than I did during the entire weekend. But the challenging conditions made it all the more rewarding and the thought of a warm fire and a decent pint waiting for us back at the hotel provided yet more inspiration. Overall though it cemented in my mind that fishing is what we make of it and above all, it must be fun. Thanks guys for a great weekend!
