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The continuing adventures of the Fluff Club, Episode 79

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  “Fly fishermen are born honest, but they get over it”.   – Ed Zern     The weather forecast was another day of scorchio, although this hot summer is expected to break in a couple of days’ time. We seem to visit Chiphall Lake about once each year, [episodes 6, 22, 25, 33, 45, & 52 refer]. Today, the Admiral, Inspector, Whytee and Dodgy proudly flew the FC banner, joined by the Professor a couple of hours late; three other chaps had braved the heat too. Martin was holding court on the lodge’s veranda, which is definitely a kind of community and family hub, with friends and relations always dropping by for a brew and a chat, mostly non-fishers. The Fluff Boys generally paid for two-fish tickets, having first checked Martin was amenable to an upgrade if anyone caught too quickly.   There was a good deal of surface weed, silkweed, and scum, but at least that provided a lot of shade, presumably helping to keep water temperatures from rising too high. Defin...
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Read all about it! No fake news here

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  The Wild Trout Trust auction is one way you can get onto first class fishing, and like today’s trip, it’s also how you can get yourself some prime time with an exceptionally knowledgeable guide! This particular Lot gave my buddy and I two day-rods on the River Yealm. This urgent, tumbling river drains off Dartmoor, and once formed into a proper river runs seven miles to the sea. A century ago it was a well-known Sea-trout and Salmon fishery, and although there still are silver visitors, most of the fishing is for truly wild Brown Trout, usually six to eight inches, with the odd bigger one turning up. I was guided by Geoff Stephens, while my buddy Brian was guided by Paul Kenyon, whose name may be familiar to you. Both of these inestimable gents have probably forgotten more about fishing wild rivers than I will ever learn, and both know the Yealm like the back of their own hands. They are also acquainted with many of the ‘top’ fly fishers, past and present, work with Snowbee from ...
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Off the Log #8

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  The first fishing trip after the cursed Covid’s lockdown? Just had to be a river. The peace and delightful intimacy of standing mid-stream, half immersed into that other world where our quarry lives, has no equal.   I confess to being rusty, but it wasn’t too long before my erratic casts began to improve, although those marauding trees and rushes, etc., found me an easy target as they snuck up on me from behind. It took a while to catch the first wild, brown trout, a little shorter than my hand’s length, a glorious jewel-creature nevertheless. Fishing size 18 and 20 barbless nymphs upstream makes it almost inevitable that I’ll drop a few off, and being out of practice meant I missed or dropped many more than I netted, but it didn’t matter one tiny jot. It was real bliss, even though I get cross at my own ineptitude at casting and tying knots, and having to re-tie my cast. I managed to lose at least seven flies, in un-noticed foliage.   I didn’t fish the whole ...
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