Planning Sessions

An old one I wrote for www.sexyloops.com

Just a quick one from me this week, I almost forgot as the days are blurring into each other. It's been too cold for much in the way of fishing here, I could have gone out for carp but it's been consistently below zero over night for the past couple of weeks, better just to stay home with a mince pie, mess around with the fishing stuff, make some inroads on my book of carp flies and try to plan what the coming year will bring.

If things start normalising a bit more I might make it over to Malaysia to see Paul, drink some whisky and miss shots at snakehead. I'd also like to get back to Scotland for a month or so, see family head to the Hebrides for some machair loch browns, hit Loch Lomond and a few others for pike and spend some days chasing grayling on the Tweed. But who knows, it seems like the travel regulations are changing all the time here: maybe we can leave, maybe we can get back in, maybe we'll have to quarantine in a hotel, maybe at home, maybe we can't get back in. Have to wait and see.

So I'm also thinking about what I can do here. I'm looking foraward to the maruta in March, I'd missed them for several years until last year and really enjoyed targetting them. I'll probably switch the focus back to carp somewhat too. In recent years smallmouth have been my main target really, but this year I've been getting back into carp and have remembered why they used to be almost exclusively all I fished for, also I'm not as good at it as I used to be which is annoying.

January will see the seabass back from spawning so, I'll get canadian John out with his spinning rod and see if we can't catch him a couple of fish. I reckon I'll get him on the fly rod this year too, which might actually increase his chances of success in the local rivers.

Hope you all have a better 2022. Aw the best 'n' lang may yer lum reek

Comments

Sharing the love

Last Monday I took my buddy Hideto from the Tokyo flyfishing blog out to show him the ropes. He'd been carping before but like most he'd struggled and never really got in to it. Eventually I convinced him that carp were worth chasing and he asked to come along. I took him to a small river near my apartment, it doesn't have many big fish but it has a lot of fish so I was confident he'd get a fish or two. After a quick coffee and explanation about the river, flies and presentation we headed up to the water. It took Hide a little while to get to grips with the presentation and reading the fish, although identifying takers is going to take more than one session to pin down. Any way we eventually got him a small fish about 20 inches or so after which his confidence started to grow along side a healthy respect for the carp as a fly fishing target. As the day wore on he picked up a few fish finishing with 5 or 6 nice little commons. I didn't fish that hard as I

Damsel Booby

This is a fantastic booby that will catch you fish year round. I find these larger boobies work best on the point or fished singly and really lend themselves to slightly faster retrieves that get the tail moving. For some reason I have found this particular pattern less effective when tied smaller in a competition size format. To support the channel, join the monthly tying classes and enter the giveaways head to https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers and sign up or contribute through https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers . Materials list Hook: Kamasan B175 size 8 Thread: Olive Uni 8/0 Tail: Medium olive marabou Body: Olive chenille Rib: Med silver holographic Hackle: Grey partridge dyed yellow Eyes: 6mm yellow foam cylinder Book of the month 6 is available here https://amzn.to/3jwznCE Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3DuHvM1 Amazon UK

Partridge & Yellow

The light partridge and yellow really is a deadly North country spider. Despite its simplicity, this fly is a great taker of both trout and grayling and frankly, the partridge and yellow should be in every river angler's box. To support the channel and be eligible for giveaways head to https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers and become a patron or support through paypal.me/flickingfeathers Materials list Hook: Kamasan B170 size 14 Thread: Yellow silk (waxed) Hackle: Grey speckled partridge

Flicking feathers

Search This Blog