Whilst the cats away - Part One

[BaggieRich]

Okay. Totally carried away and written an essay again. Sorry. There was some fairly momentious stuff to describe though.

If you want to skip to the second part of the report, click here.

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Wow. What a weekend. Where do I start? At the beginning I guess.

Thursday - Night

Kissed the missus good bye and left her and the kids at the station waiting for a train to take them to Stanley for a few days visiting relatives. Of course this meant I was effectively a free man for five days and I planned to make the absolute most of it. Fishing was number one on the agenda, but I also planned on using part of the time to catch up with some old friends. So it was that I found myself at a mates house after work on Thursday, spending all together too long shooting bad guys on the Xbox than should be healthy for a man of 34. Got home for about half nine and was packed and out the door by quarter to. A ten min drive to the beach was quickly followed by a ten min drive home to collect the forgotten bait and another ten min drive to get back to the beach. I hoped this wasn’t to be a sign as I setup my spinning rod and set about touch ledgering crab in the hope of a Bass. Conditions were far from ideal, with almost no surf at all in the areas that weren’t saturated with weed. I had a tiny schoolie about half an hour in, and 2 or 3 knocks, but by the time 00:30 come round the weed had sucked all the enthusiasm out of me and I’d had enough.

Session 1 Result: Weedy and calm, but not a blank.
Lesson learnt: Err, If you get weeded out on a spot, the chances are that it won’t have improved when you cast to the same place ten mins later.

Friday - Night

As team “Speckled Hen’s” nominated member for fluff chucking, I decided to try and get us a brown trout for the species hunt whilst I had a rare daytime pass. As such, I’d arranged a days fishing on Saturday with Duncan, a good friend and fanatical fly man. He’d selected a Trout reservoir called Fernworthy somewhere in deepest darkest Dartmoor which he assured me was rammed full of little brown trout. In order that we got a relatively early start I drove up to Duncan’s place in Okehampton after work on the Friday night and set about his beer fridge with some vigor.

Saturday – Day Time

Saturday morning came and at the crack of Eleven O’clock I found myself up to the waist in water, casting flies on stupid-small hooks without any lead to be seen what-so-ever. Fly fishing is good fun and I enjoy it once I get going, but it does take some getting back into when you haven’t done it for a while. I spent more time retrieving the fly from bushes and trees in the first hour than I did actually fishing and when I wasn’t tangled up in the undergrowth the fly line would land on water in a crumpled heap. I will admit, I even hooked myself on one occasion.

Eventually I started to get the hang of it again and the casting started to come back. Just in time as well, as we started to see a few rises and before long I felt a couple of tugs and bingo fish on. Not a massive fish I will admit, but the brown trout we needed for the hunt so I was happy. Happy that is, until I grabbed the leader to lift it out and it slipped the hook right at the bank. Gutted. The fishing had been hard so far. Duncan is a very good fly angler and even he was having problems, so I did start to think I’d missed my chance as we settled down for the most civilized lunch I’ve ever had whilst fishing. Batteries recharged, we resumed in the afternoon about Two O’clock. Through out lunch I hadn’t seen a single rise, so following another couple of casts with the floating line, I switched over to a 15’ sink tip just as three fish broken the surface near by! Ah well, I’d changed over now so I might as well give it a go. Three casts later and bang, fish on. Having lost one in the morning, there was no way I was about to lose another, so I played the fish out fully and moved slowly back towards the bank. 2 seconds later and I’d lifted the fish out and had only my 4th trout this year in hand. 1½ points for the hunt, thank you very much. A beautiful little brownie of only about ¾ pound, but very pretty, good fun and extremely welcome.

The rest of the afternoon proved frustrating. Fish were rising quite often, but neither of us could tempt them into taking a fly. We ended the day around four O’clock with just the one brownie to show between us, but it didn’t really matter to me. I achieved what I’d come to do and had a fantastic day in the process. Duncan: You are a proper gent and a fantastic host. Thanks for looking after me again mate, however, I is Ted Tuckerman, and don’t you forget it!

Session 2 Result: Points for the hunt and not a blank.
Lesson learnt: Your fish isn’t landed until it’s on the bank. This was to prove a useful lesson later on.

[pingu]

nice one partner well done!!!

dave

[tjnorton]

well done bggie is that kennick resoviour you were at?

tj

[BaggieRich]

Fernworthy mate. On Dartmoor somewhere?

[fishypaul]

nice one baggie