I was guiding John. It was one of the windows I was talking about and the river was just about fishable but we had to venture further upstream. In the truck he asked me about hawthorn fly and I said they don’t really feautre that much as the river I guide on is heavily tree lines which stops a lot of the poor flying terrestrial fly from getting blown on to the water. It was a tough morning and although we’d had a few fish we’d worked really hard for them. I had though, noticed a couple of hawthorn float by. After lunch I took John to a pool I really like. There were a couple of fish rising and after they refused the usual suspects I found a couple of hawthorn patterns lurking in the back of the fly box. John went on to catch 6 fish from the pool and it made what was a good day into a really good one.

I was also guiding Brian and a similar thing happened. This time though they were splashy aggressive rises that left us little doubt they were on hawthorn. I’d tied a few more the night before but when Brian covered the fish there were no takes. The fish were hitting the flies upstream of us before I could see them but we changed a few patterns just in case I’d got suckered in to thinking it was hawthorn. We tried quite a few different flies but nothing. I noticed a mating pair of hawthorns that were on the water. Were the fish getting two flies for the price of one? I don’t know but the rises eased a little which made me think we were in with a chance. I tied the hawthorn back on and we were in business. Perhaps there weren’t as many coming down and the fish decided one fly is better than none.

I also have to admit that I had a slight stumble and shipped a little water. I haven’t done that for a few years and knew I was due one. It was the sort that you tell your guiding pals about as it wasn’t a head first, fully submerged fall but thought I should come clean.

So it looks like things are starting to really get going on the mayfly front and we are exactly on track, hopefully, some great fishing!

The Devon School of Fly Fishing  – Fly Fishing Tuition, Guiding and Fly Fishing Lessons in Devon

I can only describe the sound as though a grenade had been lobbed into the house, it went off and then a large chunk of our roof collapsed. The force of the impact forced open two locked doors in the next room.

My fly tying desk bore the brunt of the impact and certainly made it look more messy than it usually does.

A vice that means a lot to me was ruined and a load of material went with it too. Thankfully the flies I had been tying for the last few days (there were plenty) were in a plastic tub and are still usable and as the weather was going to be bad on Sunday I was due to be back up there tying again.

Thankfully I wasn’t when all of this happened and I don’t really believe in “what ifs” but I’m pleased I decided to cook a fisherman’s breakfast of sausages, egg and bacon instead of hitting the vice.

The structual engineer told us that it was about 1 1/2 tons of corrugated iron and timber frame that hit the house and writing this I am still looking at a great big pile of it. Hopefully it will be sorted soon.

What it did do is make me think about how seriously we can take fishing sometimes when all it is about is getting our fly to the fish without it spooking them. Sure, sometimes using 8X instead of 7X might make a difference but essentially we do this for fun and life is too short to worry if the hackle has been wound round the fly 3 times or 4 times I really don’t think it matters; let the trout decide.

Fly Fishing Devon – The Devon School Of Fly Fishing  – Fly Fishing Tuition, Guiding and Fly Fishing Lessons

It has meant I haven’t been able to work which has sucked a little but I have been sitting at the vice tying flies mainly for myself and once again trying to reignite my love affair with CDC flies. I’ve tied a bunch of them from F flies to just about everything inbetween. I have also for a while now been using CDC on nymphs with some pretty good success.

The plan to fish more than usual, although scuppered in the short term, has had me getting my lanyard out as I plan not to use the gear I use when working but have my flies ready on the back seat of the truck poised for action. 2012 I will be travelling light once more!

The bad weather has also meant that Issue 5 of Eat, Sleep, Fish is ahead of schedule and will be ready to go on May 1st. Being so far ahead has also given me a chance to get  Issue 6 under way as May is a manic one for guiding so it has been the one I have worried about little bit but articles are coming in and it is full steam ahead.

Pete,

A sublime way to spend a morning, immensely relaxing, totally absorbing, completely  enthralling and in the company of a great host. Your guidance, knowledge, continued feedback and encouragement was 1^st rate. The results speak for themselves, six fish, plenty that got away (homework for me) and a great photo of my first fly cast, wild trout to remind me.

Thank you.

Pete

 

The Devon School of Fly Fishing – Fly Fishing Devon – Fly Fishing Tuition, Fly Fishing Guide and Fly Fishing Lessons

Rods rigged for a corporate day

At the weekend I was over at the excellent Blakewell Fishery at their open day. I did some tuition and explained a bit about casting and fishing and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It is a really nice place and it was nice to help people enjoy their fishing a little bit more.

Glenn and a Taw trout

The highlight for me though was meeting a Dad and his two sons who are fishing mad. The lads were about 7 and 10 but had the fishing bug bad. I had a quiet spell where I was eating a burger and was going to walk over and offer to make a few casts for them to retrieve but there was no need for that at all. As I headed over I saw one of the lads strike and hook a rainbow. Dad stood well back as the youngest son picked up a net and waited to do netting duties. Everything was done perfectly and the fish was dispatched by the lads.

Rebecca gets one under a tree

I spoke to Dad who proudly told me that that week they had done sea fishing, coarse fishing and today they were having a go for trout. What I loved most though was that once he has shown them what to do he then lets them do it for themselves. This is not just down to tying their own rigs, knots etc but everything including gutting their fish at the end of the day. The even nicer thing was that they loved every sec0nd of it and he was telling me that the only time they sit in front of a computer screen is to find out about tide times, a new knot or a fly that is working well. It was an honour to meet them and I am really sad I didn’t get their names as I reckon we’ll be hearing a lot about them in the near future!

Fly Fishing Devon with The Devon School of Fly Fishing – Fly Fishing Tuition, Guiding and Fly Fishing Lessons

2011 gathering

If you are fishing opening day then the very best of luck and if you have to wait then I hope the weather holds for you and the flies are hatching.

Eat, Sleep, Fish seems to be doing really well and we have again been amazed at the sheer numbers of fly anglers who have read the latest issue and have enjoyed it. The feedback has been really inspiring. We have been working hard on the next issue and Emma and I headed up to Yorkshire last weekend to do a Home Waters which was great fun, despite temps dropping 10 degrees and just a dusting of snow. Thankfully the grayling were still biting!

We are often ask by would-be contributors to ESF how they submit something and as of today Jim has pulled off a real master stroke and made it even easier. It’s back to the last few finishing touches for issue four. Please keep the feedback coming!

How to contribute an article to ESF

Fly Fishing Devon with the Devon School of Fly Fishing

I’ve said before that I’ve been tying a few flies and but don’t want to bore you with those pics of flies in vices etc. I’d much rather go out and road test what I’ve been tying so that when I tie one on for a client I know I’ve got it just about right.

I was fishing solo on Tuesday and went looking for some grayling. When I got to the river I rigged up and a lone Large Dark Olive landed on my finger. Now, I take these things as a sign. You can look at it two ways. Firstly, that this is as good as it is going to get today and things could go downhill from here, or secondly that you are hitting the river at just the right time and you might have had a bit of good luck. I prefer the latter and despite the good omen fished the first pool with a nymph as I hadn’t seen anything move. At the tail of the next I hooked into a nice grayling and took a picture of it in the net before releasing it.

Next pool and I saw a rise. I held fire for a bit and the tell tale bubble in the rise told me a grayling was coming on. I tied on a grey klink that I had on my patch from the day before and cast. It was a nice, positive rise and the fish was mine. A smaller one but it was a great start. I added a nymph to the dry and decided I would snip it off if I saw another rise.

Just round the corner I saw one, took the nymph off and covered the fish. Nothing, but I also saw there were a lot of midges about and I tied on a #24 black klink I’d tied recently and the fish thought it was OK and took it.

One more rise and this time the grayling didn’t want the small fly. Perhaps the good number of midges was masking the odd, further, Large Dark. I laughed at myself talking about “masked hatches” several months before I usually do.

The pattern continued and I kept mixing things up and catching some nice fish. I did have a few mishaps. The screw that holds my net handle decided to come loose when I was putting a fish back and at least it was at a time when I knew what had happened. I have had this a few times when you reach for the net and there is nothing there. I’d hate to lose this one as I really like it and it cost way more than any sane person should spend on a net.

I had been thinking about having something to eat and was going to fish one more pool when I noticed that the sole had come off of my wading boot. The fishing was too good to worry about it and as I did a sort of limp into the next pool I was making sure I didn’t loose the whole sole as I wanted to keep the tungsten studs that were in it.

I cast up against a bank and the dry dipped, I hit it and knew it was a good fish. Thump, thump it went and headed upstream. I hadn’t seen it but managed to get it under control and netted. It was a great fish and one I was really pleased with. I took a pic and slipped it back. Time for something to eat.

I limped up the bank and realised that not only the sole had come away from the upper but the whole section had come away meaning that just about everything could get into my boot making it a bit tricky to keep on fishing. It seemed right to stop there anyway and I headed home. So if a LDO lands on your finger first day of the season I hope it brings you some luck but keep an eye on your waders too!

Eat, Sleep, Fish is ready and I will be publishing it on Friday (I think) There is another good mix of fishing and if you like it please let me know.

Fly Fishing in Devon with the Devon School of Fly Fishing Fly Fishing Tuition, Guiding and Fly Fishing Lessons

I’m not one of those who goes in with the chainsaw blazing as cutting things back a little keeps everything looking the right side of natural and also means there are some nice spots for the sea trout to hang out during the day. Keeping on top of things on a yearly basis ensures the start of each season is as I described, just a bit of trimming.

As I mentioned in the last blog I have been doing a little tying. I plan the tying around the order of the hatches so when the season ended I tied some grayling flies but also tied up flies for Large Dark Olives, both dry and nymph, and then Grannom. I have been playing with the emerger stage as this is the bit that interests the trout the most. Next up Mayflies. I have plenty of duns and spinners but again have been thinking about what will trigger the fish to hit the emerging dun. Caddis really starts to get going after the Mays so it has been balloon caddis and bullet heads. Then it is the midges. This is where I am up to and have been tying some tiny size 24s that I am really pleased with. I’ve a few terrestrials to do but having sorted the boxes this morn everything looks in good shape.

Fly Fishing in Devon with the Devon School of Fly Fishing Fly Fishing Tuition, Guiding and Fly Fishing Lessons

Tie flies or go fishing?

It turned out to be a couple of day’s fishing and I am so glad I went. The fishing was excellent, the company brilliant and all in all I had a great time. I had arranged to meet my friend Dean who was keen to pop his chalkstream grayling and had come down from South Yorkshire to do so.

First day was just above zero but after meeting up we were soon in waders and in to fish. Dean is a catching machine and works the water methodically and so effectively. I followed him up the river and everytime I looked up his rod was bent. As a host there is nothing more pleasing and it saved me hopping out of the river to see how he was doing. I even bumped into RFH who was fishing just a bit downstream who wanted to have a go of my rod. He was trotting maggots and I secretly think he regretted not having his fly rod with him.

The fishing switched off just after 4pm but Dean and I carried on for a half hour or so, just to be sure and had a quick drink in the bar before having a hot shower and some dinner. Well, that was the plan and we didn’t really get back to our rooms and Emma, Dean and I rolled back to our rooms just before midnight having eaten and drank well.

With a slightly heavy head I poked my head out of the window to see that the snow had continued overnight and it couldn’t have looked prettier. Dean put any signs of a hangover aside and was on fire. I wish I could say I was the same but held up my end with a few fish too, although he hooked a bunch of grayling out of a hole I’d not managed but I was too fragile to put on the heavier fly that was needed. Well, thats my excuse!

All in all it was a great couple of days and again it is why I love fishing so much. Sharing a few fish and beers with good friends. Now where is my vice?!

Fly Fishing in Devon Fly Fishing Tuition, Guiding and Fly Fishing Lessons

This trip was different for a couple of reasons. Firstly that we decided not to fly. I am a little tired of the stealth costs of flying, especially when you are lugging a lot of gear with you. For this reason it made sense that we took the new fishing truck out to stretch its legs and I have always wanted to drive from the bottom of the country to pretty much the top.

The second reason is a pretty significant, and special one. It was to be Emma’s first fishing trip. I can’t really write how exciting this was to me and all the way up my fingers were crossed that we would have a good one.

We decided to split the upward leg of the journey by leaving on Saturday, staying in Kendal in the Lake District and then heading up to Banff on Sunday. Bar the usual traffic problems on the M6 we checked in to the hotel on Saturday night had a good dinner and excellent breakfast the next morning and headed north. That was, of course, before we made the obligatory stop at John Norris in Penrith. They very smartly open on a Sunday and the place was jammed full of fishermen making the trip up to Scotland who were eager to stock up on a few last minute essentials and even a few I saw who were getting completely kitted out for their fishing trips. It really is a nice store with friendly, helpful staff. It sort of reminded me of a store in Colorado The Dude and I visited a few years back that was the sort of place you wanted to visit before hitting the river.

As we made it just over the border into Scotland we passed over the Clyde as it snaked under the motorway. I think it was the third time we passed over it and looked to the left and it looked just like a stream from Mid West America. I really, really liked it!

When we got to the river on Monday it was just dropping, having come up a little. In my experience what usually happens is that after it has coloured it then goes a really dark peaty colour before clearing completely. As we are pretty much at the bottom of the river it means that the fish will run through pretty quick and so the top of the beats is the place to fish. That is where we started. We did see plenty of fresh fish along with a few coloured ones but no joys.

Circle Spey

On Tuesday we were towards the bottom and again we saw some fish but we didn’t really feel like we were in the game. I did have a trout followed next cast by a small sea trout.

Wednesday we were back at the top and in the afternoon Emma and I had the very top beat and the water was starting to just about clear a little. I was fishing a pool lower to Emma but heard her let out a yell and saw the rod briefly buck before a fish came off. I ran up quickly to help but the moment had passed. That was only before I had got back in and again Emma was briefly attached to a fish. The really nice thing was that she just laughed it off and made another beautiful cast.

Covering the water.....

It looked like the fish were on and not long after my line went tight and I lifted into a fish. I was guiding Paul just before we made the trip and he described the salmon he had caught as being plugged in to the electricity. That sounds just about right. Emma netted the fish, abeautiful hen, perfectly which we admired briefly before letting her continue her journey upstream.

One for me....dig the hat!

Thursday and we were back on the very lowest beats. Again Emma cast and fished beautifully and again was briefly attached to a fish that just didn’t stick. I had another small sea trout but despite covering the water well that was it for us.

Friday and the water looked really good but it felt a good deal cooler. Morning was quiet but after lunch it warmed a little and Emma chose her fly and decided the pool she wanted to fish. You know what? She was dead right as the line went tight and she lifted into a fish. I was standing by the truck putting an intermediate tip on my line as I had done with hers as we had fished fast sinkers all week.

The fish was hooked on the lip at the very tail of a pool and Emma expertly played the fish, keeping it under control. I headed out with a net and after a while the fish was netted. We thought we would keep the fish as it was a cock fish and Emma’s first salmon and so after dispatching, we hugged each other and I don’t mind admitting that I had a tear in my eye. It was the perfect moment and after all of the hard work Emma had put in she had been rewarded.

The reward for all of the hard work!

We had planned to fish the morning of the Saturday but thought that we would make the drive home in one go and so didn’t hit the water.

There were so many highlights of the trip but the main one is looking upstream and seeing Emma smile as she watched her line swing through the pool or being upstream of her and hearing her sing as she sent out another beautiful cast.

I don’t think it could have been a better trip. I think that the spinner outfished the fly that week but we wanted to fish the fly. It isn’t a snobbish, or certainly not an elitist thing – we just enjoyed making a nice cast feeling we were covering the water.

The other thing was that you don’t need a whole load of tackle or gear. As long as you can cover the water efficiently you are in with a chance. All we did was use a variety of differing sink tips and had doubles and various tubes. Emma used a Skagit set up which made life easy when you coupled it with a Circle or Double Spey.

Sometimes we get all hot under the collar with technicalities but there just isn’t always the need. We could easily say the Skagit line can land a little heavy on the water but when Emma had her first two takes it was in shallow, relatively clear water and the fish didn’t seem to mind too much. They are the ones who decide if we have done things correctly or not and they certainly don’t care how nice the loop was on the cast or if you have the latest “must have” fly on!

All in all though the fishing wasn’t the easiest but it was the most enjoyable. The truck was excellent (fishingmobile V.3), the food and accommodation outstanding and Emma, thank you so much for making this such a wonderful trip, I don’t think it could have been more perfect.

Fly Fishing Tuition, Guiding and fly fishing Lessons in Devon The Devon School of Fly Fishing – Fly Fishing in Devon

I am out on the water just about every day and there have been a few mornings when I have peered out and thought mmmmm, this might be a toughie. It’s not like I don’t like the tough days. In fact I really like them. They are the days when you really think about fly selection, where you are going to fish and what might do the job for the day. I’ll carefully think about the beat we’ll be fishing and what will be the best for the conditions. Those I have guided will know I will have them leaping into the truck to try another beat if the one we are on isn’t fishing.

I was guiding Gavin at the weekend and it turned out to be one of those days where everything slotted into place just as I always hope they will. I took him to one of his favourite beats and we had a bunch of fish including a sea trout that we saw shoot out of his hidey hole and nail the Copper John we were fishing. It did his best to weed Gavin but some well executed side strain did the job and we netted the fish. We headed back for lunch at the hotel where the chefs always like to come up with something interesting to eat. Rob said he had come up with the ultimate fisherman’s lunch which he calls the Manwich. Tell you what, it is ideal fishing fodder.

We hit another beat after lunch and fish were soon on the dry. As the day went on the fishing went in pulses of activity but we took advantage of them. Just as we called it a day, the skies opened and the rain fell. It couldn’t have been better timing.

Just back from guiding on the chalk with the legend that is MFD. Report to follow shortly!

The Devon School of Fly Fishing. Fly Fishing Tuition, Fly Fishing Lessons and Guiding- Fly Fishing in Devon