Another old article I wrote for www.sexyloops.com
Last week I cancelled my fishing because of a horrendous storm which was disappointing. But at least I managed to make good inroads to a dry fly box I'm working on.
It did mean that I spent the whole week looking forward to making my first smallmouth foray of the year, especially as we've had almost a week of 20degree weather. I was super keen. Leaders tied, bag packed well before the usual night before scramble. Unfortunately, I ended up spending most of Monday morning on the fraud line with my bank as my card had been cloned. Another Monday's fishing knocked on the head. After moping around for a bit, I mustered enough motivation to take the rod for a walk down my local river. With the unseasonably warm weather the fish were feeding, but were still a bit less active than I expected. That said looking down from a bridge I could still see several fish with their tails up. Encouraging.
I spent the next couple of hours struggling to get within striking range of fish as despite the heat, it's still February and the sun is low. A lot of glare, and a recently mown banking, meant a lot of spooked carp. I might have wished for better light, but I love the difficult fishing. The sense of achievement that comes with an eat is so much more when it's technical.
After around 15 approaches that became 6 or 7 shots, a few fly changes and tying a new, much longer leader, I finally came upon a fish that was feeding off the edge of some floating weed. Another fly change to an unweighted glo-bug, a short stalk and a long cast then drag back to let the fly hang just at the edge of the weed mat. After a couple of seconds the fish swam over and ate it like it was supposed to. It wasn't big, but I had earned it. I'd have been happy with that one fish, but still had about 600m of fishable bank. Changing back to a lightly weighted hybrid I started creeping downstream spooking fish and collecting refusals from what seconds earlier were perfect shots. Just as I was getting ready to call it, I saw 3 fish that were only half a shot, a bit far, a bit hard to see and in maybe 20cm of flat calm water . As I made the cast I saw one of turn away from me. I was sure I'd line it and spook the lot of them and the bow wave it produced seemed to confirm it. Then it stopped and tailed perfectly on the fly and I was in again. Another small fish maybe 4 or 5lb, but a great moment. One of those eats that you remember for ages.
2 small carp might not be an amazing day's fishing, but that couple of hours left me feeling like I'd had a really good day. I doubt very much, that I'd have ended up in such a good mood if I'd let my frustrations keep me indoors.
Book of the month 6 is available here
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