Devon School of Fly Fishing Team blog

Being a fly fishing guide and instructor is a dream job, well, as far as I am concerned it is. I think people often think that you get to go fishing every day and you do but as long as you don’t mind holding the fly rod then it’s fine. If you feel that you need to be doing the casting or fishing then it might be some form of torture!

Anyway, I was on the river for a bit today but it was strictly fly fishing related in the sense going out there and catching fish. It was more of a case of preparing more than anything else.

There is a section at the very bottom of Beat 5 that is a really nice spot for migratory fish to hold and have a breather after they have  negotiated the top of Beat 6.                   

David at the top of Beat 6 on Sat

The only downside of this is that there are some nasty fly snagging branches just where you’d like to aim your spey cast and they’ve been bugging me a bit so I decided to give them a little trim with a saw. The saw I have is encased in a cardboard sleeve and being the great handy man I am it hasn’t seen a lot of action recently. I only realised this when I got to the river and took it out. It was a little bit blunt and a bit rusty. Oh well, I decided to wade across the river and have a go. I am glad the guys who were working on the bridge found it amusing as I hacked at the branches with the blunt saw as best I could and in the end did most of it by breaking the branches by hand. Despite everything I am really pleased and there is still some nice shade but enough room to get a cast and a nice drift.

I just hope I can hold a fly rod after all of this!

I managed to grab a couple of hours of fishing Sunday afternoon. The weather was slightly more settled than Saturday where one minute we had bright sunshine and then showers. The Taw was carrying a little bit of colour on Saturday but I decided to head over to the Bray and see what was going on. The water was lower than last week and was crystal clear. Judging by the clarity it looks like Exmoor didn’t get as much rain as Dartmoor the last few days.

As ever, I peered over the bridge to see if anyone was home but didn’t see a great deal despite the clarity. There have been times when some of the sights I have seen would make even the most experienced angler shake with excitement!

Today wasn’t  the case but I hopped down to the bottom of the beat and set myself up. I watched the water while I was doing this and it looked like there were a few flies around but not a lot of interest from the fish.  To cover all bases I tied on the klink and tied a 3 1/2 foot dropper to the bend of the hook and to this I tied a tungsten bead head pheasant tail. Getting into the water I noticed a few large dark olives and the odd grannom too. A few casts and the klink dipped as a fish took. I had been throwing my fly down the edge of a nice run that had just the right amount of speed to it for this time in the season. It’s one of the moments where you think to yourself that perhaps you have timed everything just right and you have got into the river as the switch has been turned to the ON position.

That having been said they weren’t exactly jumping at the flies and I saw countless fish just skulking around the bottom and covering them would see them just slink off to some place more comfortable when they saw the nymph pass them. Despite this I picked up a few here and there.

I headed up to my all time favourite spot. It doesn’t look anything out of the ordinary just a nice slow flow up against the bank with some nice shelter but it has always come up with the goods. I worked my way up and put a cast in and under a bush but despite being just a little short I saw the fish dart out and take the nymph. Bray fish often have a nice shade of yellow to them but this little fella was paler than normal.

The hatch of grannom was more of a trickle than a deluge but I saw one really nice rise from a fish that looked a good one. I slowly made my way up to him but I saw a heron take off upstream and although I waited to see if was going to rise again he didn’t. Perhaps he was spooked or was just a “oncer” that saw something he liked the look of but didn’t see anything more he fancied.

As I walked back the path takes you a little higher and the bank was carpetted in wild garlic and the aroma if you like that sort of thing was delicious. I have often taken some back home and we have used it on lamb. Makes me feel all Hugh Whats-his-name-stall.

It is often said that the back of my truck is a little bit of a mess. I have written before about the sorry state of the interior and I will hold my hands up to that one but the back is, as I see it, an area where everything is carefully filed away for when it will be next used. As I have been both teaching and guiding for both trout and salmon recently I want to make sure I have the appropriate gear ready just in case a client needs something and I don’t have one those “I left it at home moments”

As a result the rods have been stored either on the back seat of the truck broken up or inside the pick up part that is covered by a canopy again broken down. This isn’t one of my smartest moments and thankfully I haven’t come a cropper. What this did do though was make me dig out my rod loft again. The rod loft is an attachment that fits inside the canopy of my truck and allows me to store the rods off of the ground broken down and ready for action.

The Rod Loft

 The theory is great, what happens is that the arms have attachments that fit down into the rubber lining of the canopy. The downside is that in the past I have loaded my beloved Scott rods into the attachments and I have driven down the road only to go over a bump and the thing falls out of where I have attached it. There is that horrible moment where you pray that the rods are still in their regulation 4 pieces not 5! Hardly surprisingly the longest I have lasted with this is one day but I am determined to make it work. I epoxied the rubber seals so that they didn’t collapse (they have in the past) and it has held firm for me. I am almost into a week of hard use and it is working fine. I will report back progress in the next month or so.

I popped into Howards today and we got into a dirt kicking contest about who had spent the longest time without cleaning the outside of their car. We are both lucky that our cars are silver and don’t show the dirt up much and I felt pretty confident when I said to him mine was last cleaned in May last year. I was crest fallen to hear he beat me by 3 months.

Many congrats to my pal Jim Williams on passing his latest AAPGAI exam…good on you fella!

Since the trout season has started I have been picking up fish on nymphs when I have been working and pleasure fishing. I don’t mind this one bit at all but it is still always nice to see a fish take your dry fly.

I headed up the Taw a little further today and grabbed a couple of hours on the water for myself. It was the first time I have strung the two weight up in anger this year for trout although it did see some action on the Tone after grayling.

I parked up and before I popped on my waders I had a peek over the bridge. There is nothing better to lift a fly fisherman’s hopes than seeing a rise. It looked like it was a parr but none the less it is always a nice sight to greet you as you’re about to head off. Part of me wanted to just stick with a dry given what I had just seen but I went for belt and braces and hung a pheasant tail a couple of feet off of the ever present scruffy klink.

The first section I fished I didn’t see or get any interest in my flies. I got up to where there is a small island and usually head for the channel to my right as I looked upstream. I prefer this one as the water is a little slower and it runs right up against the bank providing some good shelter. This meant I just stepped into the left channel where I promptly saw a nice fish shoot downstream. He was holding on the seam of the fast water. I have to admit I have never caught a fish from that side but lesson learnt!

I carried on up the run in the photo above and thought that I might be in with a shout here. The flow is fairly slow and runs down the true right bank side (the left side as you look at the photo but is broken up by a series of trees that creates two nice flows. One around the trees and one just outside of the edge of the trees. Sadly it wasn’t the case but one of my favorite pools was round the corner. I cast to where I know fish like to lay and the dry shot under and I was in business.  I had a few more again on the nymph and I also noticed a few large dark olives coming off. Not many but enough to perhaps stir the trout a bit.

I carried on up the river for a bit and picked up a few fish here and there. The highlight though was my first of the season on the scruffy klink. I like little landmarks like these and hopefully there will be one or two more this season.

First fish on a dry fly this season.

How nice has the weather been the last few days? It is stark contrast to the way the season started last year and it has been nice to be out on the water in just a t shirt and light fleece. From a fishing perspective it hasn’t been too bad at all. I feel like I have been suckered in to all this sunshine and my body feels a little like it should be summer already but I think this is wishful thinking. The hatches on the river have been kind of interesting so far in that they have been happening in two spells during the day (well, on the Taw system). I think it has been a case that the cold, clear nights have made the mornings a slow start affair on the rivers and the early riser bugs have shown a brief appearance later lunchtime and then as the sun has stayed out the has been a small second wave around 4 to 4.30pm.

It was like this yesterday. I was with Simon who wanted to do some fly casting tuition in the morning and then wanted to learn a bit about fly fishing rivers in the afternoon. After a sandwich and a pint ( a diet coke in my case!) we headed down to the Taw. We were fishing the home beat that is pretty well sheltered and hadn’t had a great deal of sun on it. We saw some odd large dark olives coming off but it just didn’t feel right. Simon got to grips with the river pretty quickly but the holes I thought might throw out a fish didn’t. It is times like this that you think that it might be worth a quick change of venue so we hopped in the truck. Part of my motivation was that I would hate to flog a piece of water for the sake of it when it is apprent there isn’t a great deal going on and having other options up the sleeve makes the decision process a whole lot easier. I don’t know if you ever get the feeling but it just didn’t feel “right”

Anyway, we jumped in the truck and hit the Bray which has a lot more exposure to the sun than the beat we had been fishing. The levels were still a little higher than I expected but Simon expertly threw his fly into the slacker spots looking for a taker. I certainly felt more confident and it felt a case of when, not if, he was going to get his first river fish. We’d started up the beat a little higher and it just hadn’t happened. I had spotted a few fish at the bottom of the beat as we walked up so we headed back down before heading off as Simon wanted a fish from our lake for his tea. It was just about 4 and the large dark olives were starting. Again it was only a modest hatch but it was enough to get Simon off the mark.

Simon gets to grips with double hauling

I love fly fishing. I think the reason is that I find it mind blowing that we can tie on a fly made out of fur and feather that we guess might look something a little like what they are feeding on, make the cast and the fish only goes and takes it. For me there is nothing more exciting and I find this the case more so when I am fishing a dry fly.

This is the main reason I fish and for me this is what it is all about- the art of decption.  Don’t get me wrong the fight can sometimes be hugely exciting but I love the take. This leads me on to a great guy I met on Tuesday.

Damian is one of those people who has picked up a fly rod and it fitted like a glove. Although self taught he can throw a really nice line. Now that is a great advantage but the really cool thing is his approach to fly fishing. He fishes a dry fly only, and again this isn’t unusual but when you take a look at his fly box you might notice that all of his flies are missing the sharp bit. They don’t have a hook. For Damian it is solely about the take. He first heard about this approach in the U.S. and thought he would try it himself. He is the first person I have actually met who uses this approach and it doesn’t stop his enjoyment of our sport, not one bit. Some might find this a little unorthodox but to me this is one of the great things about fly fishing. If it works for you do it!

Damian makes a cast

This is one of the great things about fly fishing  – you just never stop learning or meeting so many interesting people.

It seems as the GB PLC is in a pretty bad state of affairs right now. Talk of  the “green shoots” of recovery have been a little premature to say the least. With doom and gloom seeming to be the buzz words I was really, really happy to go to a shop opening today. This wasn’t any old shop though, this was a new fly fishing tackle shop. The even better news is that they are just down from me in Crediton…

Fly Fishing Tackle is run by Howard, Helen and Kirsty. They already have a great online fly fishing tackle business but have decided that the opportunity of a new premises was too great and has allowed them to open their doors to the public. I often popped into their old place to have a quick cuppa, talk fishing and pick up some fishing gear but it didn’t lend itself as well to walk-in trade. Despite this there always seemed a steady stream of visitors and I guess this must have helped in the descision to have a proper retail premises. The new place is just a couple of seconds walk from Crediton High street and is large, airy and light it is packed with a very large variety of tackle to suit all pockets and all levels of experience. You are always assured a warm welcome and I think I overheard Howard mention sofas and coffee pots. I think they will find it hard for me to get out of there during the closed fishing season if this is the case!!

L to R Kirsty, Howard and Helen

Whilst writing these I have come to the conclusion that I could have probably put the flies I have written about in slightly better order but it has been nice to just think about a hatch or a fishing situation and write about it rather than having any semblance of proper order. I’ll do my best to try and keep them a bit closer to the calender in future!

So, the next up on the list is the March Brown. This fly is one of our early upwing hatches of the season hence the name. It is a bit of a bruiser in size compared to the Large Dark Olive being about 4mm bigger but still a good 4mm smaller than the daddy of them all the Mayfly. Again like the LDO the March Brown has two tails.

The nymph likes to cling to stones so when you turn one over you’ll often see them scuttle for cover. A pheasant tailed nymph will usually cover this stage of the fly with a bead head to get you down and an unweighted version fished just subsurface can get interest from the trout. I have hit quite a few hatches of these and I can usually be lucky enough to catch a good one on the Bray. I found a great little March Brown pattern from Simon at Turralls that I have used for a number of years. I usually fish a size 14 but also have them in size 16 as they are a great all rounder for olives too.

    The latin name is again a slightly trickier one to remember but for the record it is Rhithrogena germanica. Getting up close you’ll see the body of the fly is a really dark brown with light rings around the abdomen. If you hit one of these hatches at the right time it can make a really nice start to the fly fishing season with a dry!

I was out on the water yesterday and if it stays dry today we could be in for some fun for the opening of the trout fly fishing season. Interestingly I have noticed that the hatches of Large Dark Olives haven’t been as large as a few weeks back but with some slightly milder weather that we’ll see them get going again.

We are in the process of changing the look of the blog page so please bear with us but if you need the main site it can be found here. www.devonschoolofflyfishing.com

I was popping up to Kennick yesterday and hopped into my truck and went to start it up and not a lot happened. It seems like I have a flat battery and I’m not sure what caused it. I say that, I think one of two things might have caused it. I popped on the river with Toby on Friday and he had left his stuff on the back seat of my truck. The only downside of this was that he took a while to set up and my truck, as much as I love it, has this annoying little habit of resetting the alarm when it feels like it. This means that if you are poking around inside with the door open and it decides to rearm you will probably set off the alarm. As I said Toby took a little while to set up his gear and I kept having to reset the alarm…perhaps this did it? Or Emma got me a device that you plug into the cigarette lighter which you then plug you IPod into and it selects a clear radio channel allowing you to play your IPod music through your car stereo. It is really cool but I was thinking that leaving it plugged in the whole time might be draining the battery, the device also charges the Ipod so perhaps this has something to do with it too. Either way it meant I had to jump into Emma’s car and try and remember my waterproof stuff along with hat and glasses. Thankfully I did. I am charging the truck battery now so hopefully it will work…I hope it isn’t anything more serious.

I got a sniff of a fresh salmon being caught a little further downstream from us on the Taw. This means they are starting to head our way. I’ll be waiting for them and will hopefully get a shot at one or two. Toby thought he had a pull Friday but it is always hard to know and he would probably prefer I didn’t say that as he much prefers the black or white approach. You either had a fish or you didn’t. I think he is right but early season it does lift your spirits a bit to see or at least think that something might have been paying your offering some attention. In this case it was a Flying C.

The trout season is less than a week away. If the weather is up to it I’ll be hitting the Taw but most likely the Bray. If not I’ll be heading to Colliford for some brown trout fly fishing on Bodmin Moor. I’ll be stringing up the rod with an intermediate line and the ever faithful black tadpole. Small short, jerky strips usually work and we’ll see if this is the case this year.

Paul sent me an email yesterday telling me that fly tying can be potentially bad for your health…more from Paul below.

Fly tying is dangerous! A cautionary tale.

I have great little study. It has windows facing south and east and therefore catches the morning sun.

The L-shaped desk has one arm along the south facing windowsill with computer, filing etc above and below it.

The other arm sits along the west wall of the room and has all my fly-tying equipment permanently out and ready to go. A captain’s chair swivels conveniently between the two.

A few mornings ago- the first decent day in ages- I was happy sitting at the computer part of the desk browsing the internet and Pete’s new website and blog.

Suddenly, my wife cried out in considerable alarm that something was on fire in the house.

I was out of my study like a shot, nose twitching like a rabbit scenting lettuce. I, too, caught a strong whiff of something burning!

Strangely, it seemed to be coming from behind me! I returned to my study to find flames licking up the white card I place behind my vice to improve my view of work in progress!  Having doused the flames, it was clear a 2” hole had been burnt in the card.

The culprit was the magnifier mounted in front of the vice- a perfect combination of a sunny morning and the distance between magnifier and card perfect for focusing the sun on the card.

Happily no serious damage done- but I hate to think what might have happened had we been out or elsewhere in the house with the study door closed.

Thanks Paul!

Main website for Devon School of Fly Fishing is www.devonschoolofflyfishing.com

Next up is the Grannom. I have a special place for the grannom as it was one of the first testing grounds for the scruffy klink that I use almost exclusively these days. Paul is a good client of the fly fishing school and he  wanted some help tackling the Culm. It was early in the season as we hit the river early as Paul is keen as me and we made the long walk to the bottom of the beat. There wasn’t a lot going on at first but I tied on the scruffy klink and if memory serves correctly Paul was in to a fish first or second cast. We worked round a left bend into a slow moving deepish pool where the grannom were hatching and the fish were rising all over the pool. It was one of those magical moments where we were in the perfect position as everything started to happen. Paul and I were beside ourselves with excitement and he picked off fish as they liked the look of what he cast at them. This was one of the first times I thought we might have been on to something with this fly. I had last used it the last day of the previous season and it had worked perfectly through a caddis/sedge hatch. A week or so later I was on the water with Jo and my only prototype was lost on what looked like a really nice fish. Jo was a little upset that he had lost it but I thought it was a fitting way for the fly to go.

So a couple of facts about grannom. It is a member of the sedge or caddis family (Trichoptera). The easiest way to spot or think of this family is that they have roof shaped wings. I find an easy way to spot them from a distance is that appear and look more like moths flying around rather than how the upwings would fly. It is then a case of working out size and colouration to get you in with a shout. There are about 200 species in the UK but rather than having a multitude of patterns I find tan, green and black cover most conditions. As for patterns I am a fan of Al Troths Elk Hair Caddis and the G & H sedge. I have some G & H sedges in some big sizes that The Dude and I used one time we were fishing the Suir in Ireland at 11 o’clock at night in darkness. All we could hear were the rises so we would throw our flies in what we thought was the right direction!  As a whole though there is no need for a huge variety of sizes and for fly fishing in Devon I find sizes 14 and 16 work really well. Another pattern worth considering is the excellent balloon caddis. The adult fly has greyish wings and green/brown body.

Hatches tend to occur in April from around lunchtime although the one I hit with Paul must have been around 10 to 10.30am. The larvae build a case which is pretty easy to spot if you lift up a few stones. Always remember to put the stones gently back though.

In todays  impress your friends section the name is slightly more difficult to remember than the other flies I have covered as it is Brachycentrus subnubilus.

I have been a great fan of the work Al Troth has done since reading about him in Wisdom of  the Guides (he’s on the cover) and whilst writing  I found THIS on You Tube.

Main site:  www.devonschoolofflyfishing.com