A couple of recent trips to the Wey were, on reflection, a
perfect distillation of what continues to delight, frustrate, fascinate and
intrigue me when it comes to hunting our spotted friends with our confections
of fur and feather.
The first trip started off with a lively fish extracted from
a tricky seam and I thought the portents were promising for a lively evening of
sport. How wrong I was I managed to raise interest from all the likely spots
but I pricked fish after fish. I just could not connect with anything, from the
smallest sips all the way through to porpoise rolls through the fly. In terms
of fly selection I had hedged my bets and was fishing a CDC & Elk flush in
the surface.
Tricky seam
The second trip was the polar opposite of the first. The
Mayfly emergence was in full flow and the fish were locked on to the emerging
duns. The emergence resulted in a flotilla of emerging duns on the river and it
was possible to track individuals. The ‘will it, won’t it’ as the dun bobs
along the river is the height of suspense. I was fishing with a pattern tied
with a pheasant tail body and tail with a deer hair wing and a red game hackle.
Very loosely based on a conversation that I had with Philip White many years
ago. Initially I had interest in the fly but no success. I was beginning to
fear that I was repeating my form from the previous visit. But once one fish
was caught others followed and I had a memorable session fishing only for
actively feeding fish that were individually targeted. The fish were interested
only in the emerging fly and my pattern fooled a more than a few. The highlight
of the session being this bruiser that was caught from under a bridge.
Troll trout
The stream really is in fine fettle at the moment. Plan for
this week is to visit the Avon to see if I can catch the spinner fall.
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