The Continuing Adventures of the Fluff Club, Episode 1

Only the names and places are changed, to protect the innocent.

The Fluff Club is what my wife calls our group of Fly dressers, so it follows that she calls an individual a Fluff Boy.

Sunday morning arrived with rain. Lots of it. Meeting at the fishery for breakfast we found the cafe stuffed with a bunch of coarse anglers who had a match on their part of the fishery. In time it was our turn, eleven wanting breakfasts but only nine covers had been pre-booked. Our usual level of organisation and planning, but it did keep us out of the rain for a while longer. Eventually we splashed off to the trout end: three ponds, one a bit canalised and usually brown as tea.
Coming to the latter first I armed the business end of my glass intermediate approach with a silver bead-chain Cats Whisker with a bit of pink mixed into the white marabou in both wing and tail plus some flash on each side of the tail. This had only just been tied during the preceding week. After the first two fan casts there was a definite tug, but I missed. Three casts later and I struck into a very active pound-and-a-half stockie Rainbow. One fish landed and you relax and fish better. I squelched up to the next pond.
I missed another quick hit, then had a Rainbow the twin of my first by casting left, parallel to the bank into the corner where I'd spotted some surface swirls. The Headmistress was on the other side of this corner, also using a CW, she cast to the area and was delighted to bend her rod into a fish, in due course netted for her by Jackdaw. He promptly set himself between the Headmistress and this hot spot and was soon playing a fish. I made another cast into the zone but there was a rise straight out in front of me near the small island so I rapidly retrieved my still-sinking cast to see a bow-wave zooming towards me and the fly was nailed by a trout, then scrapping way above its weight. As I drew it to the net I was delighted to see a heavily-spotted Brown, again around a pound and a half. I kept the pan-net half submerged in the water and called out towards the Admiral opposite
"Do we return Brown trout ?"
Dell-boy called back "Yes, they should go back".
Kneeling on the sodden bank I wet my hands and un-hooked the fish in the water in the net, then inverted the net only to see it nose-dive into some bottom weed. I managed to scoop it back into the net, remove the weed, and held it upright until it was able to swim away. Moving to the third water I kept my CW variant on as I was keen to see if it really was as effective as it seemed or whether I was fluking.
Meanwhile the Headmistress and Jackdaw caught again. On the third water the Lumberjack, Turner, and the Admiral were yet to open their accounts.
The Professor, still on the second pond, was getting takes but not connecting with them.
On the third, unbelievably as this fishery is not known for Brownies nor has the current owner stocked any, I connected with another, which took on the hang, coming up like a porpoise. I soon released it and it torpedoed away. I moved around to a bit of a promontory where two Herons had been until we approached the ponds. I cast left to land the fly under a running inlet pipe. Wham!
Another Brown, this one over two pounds, again fighting hard whilst I tried to hustle it to the net to aid a speedy recovery. Turner came around to inspect my fly and asked where I got the pale pink marabou ... "Hobbycraft".
The Admiral connected briefly but he's making a bit of a habit of the long-distance release. The Sailor missed a take too, a little rusty from not having fished for some while, then Turner had the first of his eventual brace, a Rainbow nearly three pounds. The Professor hooked-up next, another one around the three pounds. While pausing to chat to the Admiral I had a cast or two with his brand new Snowbee Diamond II, purchased last Fluff Club outing at Sportfish. It seemed to suit my casting style and delivered a reasonable length of line straight out with real ease. Impressive.
Despite the continuing deluge we fished on, some happily content but others looking a little grim. The Sailor got one next and despatched it although he normally prefers to release them. The rule here is catch and kill for Rainbows. I called over
"You ought to try for the Browns!".
The Headmistress and Jackdaw were both on three now when the Professor hooked up with his second which turned out to be very close to four pounds and the best of the day. That's the monthly 'Best Fish' and 'Best Brace' cups for him to hold until our next trip.
Having caught in the plural on the two ponds I decided to see if I could get another from the 'canal' and sloshed back to it. Rodney was fishing from the Middle and told me he'd had a couple and lost a couple. When I told him how it was faring on the other waters he had one or two more desultory casts before heading off to join the throng.
Back at the very spot where I started I 'retired' the pinky CW variant to my soaking fly patch and tied on a Kennick Killer. A small Rainbow, about a pound, hit quickly and proceeded to jump around crazily like a fire cracker until it threw the hook. Two casts later I had another take, only for the fish to come off when nearly ready to net. I checked if the hook point was still keen and found that the gape had opened a bit, allowing it to pull out. I suddenly remembered I had used it on a session a couple of months back and got snagged in a tree, the gape had opened when I tugged the fly free so I had squeezed it back into shape later when it had dried out and replaced it in its fly box and forgotten the incident. It now dawned on me that the un-bending then re-bending had altered the wire's temper, allowing it to give under pressure. There's a lesson there.
I put on a black 'limit damsel' that I dress and soon had another stockie Rainbow in the bag, just one left for my four-fish ticket. It was approaching 1.00pm and I had promised to be home for the afternoon, but there was a new (to me) pattern that I wanted to try: a 'Dennis the Menace' that the Angling Trust's Dan Williamson had demonstrated to us on our tying meet a fortnight earlier. I had tied some to try, although on a different shanked hook to the one he had used.
Casting across to the far bank by a dying patch of lilies my fly was taken on the drop. Yes, yet another Brownie! Unfortunately, there was a little bleeding in the roof of the mouth when I unhooked it, so I let the priest visit, and there was my four.
I squelched back to the others for cheerio banter, still in the downpour. the Lumberjack and Admiral were still fishless, and the Sailor packing-up, like me also having to do stuff in the après-midi. I headed splashily towards the car park, stopping at the lodge to get out of my waterproofs and have a reviving coffee. Soon most of the motley crew shuffled in to have their various lunches in the dry. The Professor and Dell-boy revealed their waterproofs were no longer exactly up to the job, being a bit damp underneath. I headed for my car, the motorway, and warmth and dryness.