The Continuing Adventures of the Fluff Club, Episode 52

(… in which the names of the participants are pseudonyms, in an effort to be as inclusive to others as possible, an attempt to attain the widest readership. Everything else is factual.)

“The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.” -John Buchan

 Chiphall ‘Lake’ looked cold. Banks frosted white, some ice formed along parts of the margins, very still, a little mist rising here and there, and deathly quiet this early hour. A few nights below freezing suggested to me that the fish might be deep, yet there were surface swirls and bow-waves that indicated otherwise. The odd Coot and Dabchick began to busy themselves, whilst four or five Mallards performed fly-pasts as we got ourselves ready. Only three Fluff Club stalwarts today: the Professor, the Inspector, and Whytee. Another car pulled in containing two more Fluff Boys, but the invalids Foggy and Jackdaw hadn’t come to fish, but to waste a little bit of Sunday morning watching and having the craic, (mainly indoors by the woodburner). They hung out for a couple of hours until heading off for respective Sunday lunches. It was good to see them out and about despite the cold and their health woes.

 I commenced operations with a Di5 with a ‘Wossname Booby’ on the tip, to be fished slow-to-static-to-slow in that deep hole in the corner. The Professor went for a floating line approach, while the Inspector went to an intermediate. Between the three of us we were covering all the main options, quite by chance. Whytee was only slightly pessimistic, paying for three, while the others both went for four. The Professor hooked up after only a handful of casts, fishing a pink-bead, black nymphy-thing, but the fish escaped after a few moments: “I told you it’s become a thing!” Whytee said to the Professor, “You’ve definitely got a dose of the dropsy!” The regular reader may have spotted Whytee had a touch of dropsy in the last episode too, but not as extensive as the Professor’s case has been, several episodes in a row.

 Despite wearing Snowbee fishing gloves, Jack Frost was nibbling at my exposed digits, while ice crystals formed in the rod-rings as I retrieved. The Professor hooked a second trout, this time beating the hoodoo, bringing it safely to net, a good Rainbow which I think later made four pounds. An hour went by before my first take, but this one came off just as I got it up to the surface; it appeared to be around three but you can’t be sure until they are up close, nevertheless the activity raised my spirits. The Professor caught his second, using the same fly as his first, which he later called a “bead-head dog biscuit”, (no, I’m none the wiser, either). The Inspector, having actually started fishing nearby, inevitably headed up the ‘lake’ to the top end area where he has been so successful on so many occasions, winkling-out the biggies. Representing this fishery at four Troutmaster finals in consecutive years tells the tale. Up the top end, however, the water was much more coloured due to the proximity to the inlet, so he wasn’t able to spot any fish. Before long he had completed two circumnavigations of the water, including visiting the one island there is access to, and was commencing the third.

 I was getting bored by the inertia of my approach, the long countdown, funereal pulls interspersing long pauses, so on the next cast I aimed for the pod making the odd swirls, which the Professor had been targeting, and didn’t count anything, instead starting a quick retrieve as soon as the fly landed, my line tightened, whereupon a spirited two-and-a-half pounder did it’s very best before succumbing. That made my mind up: time to change to an intermediate, the fish were definitely not down in the dark depths.

 As the frost was driven off by the wintry sun, and the day climbed past the crucial five degrees Celsius mark, we were joined by another five or six anglers that dispersed around the fishery. Once I had changed lines I knotted on a new ‘tie to try’, a little number called the ‘Pink Spark’, (the original ‘Spark’ made it into Flymasters, in Trout Fisherman magazine, a while back).

 Meanwhile, the Professor caught his third to a black lure (that would be called a Leech pattern across the pond), and which had generated a few follows. Before midday, my new fly had proved too attractive to the Rainbows, netting me a two-eight and a three-eight, and I stowed my gear in the car then went to the lodge for a hot drink. Through the window I watched the Professor landing his fourth and final, this time to a ‘Yellow Dancer’; perhaps he has found a cure for the dreaded ‘dropsy’? Today’s guvnor, Martin Cooper, had earlier told us that yellow patterns had “done the business” the previous day, but we tend to take “Oh, you should have been here yesterday” with a large pinch of salt! The Inspector’s starting fly choice, his yellow buzzer, hadn’t generated any interest earlier in the day.

 I walked up the east bank to look for  the Inspector, to find he had grassed two by now, both had come to his intermediate, fishing a “green-tailed nymph” but he was now of a mind to switch back to buzzers on a floating line, his usually fail-safe approach on this fishery. Well, they do say “A change will do you good”, don’t they? The ‘goodness’ here came in the form of a four-nine and a four-ought, the better one from that deeper channel that runs along the left-hand (west) bank, after the Professor and Whytee had departed. Both Rainbows fell to that buzzer pattern featuring the green nail-polish purloined from his good lady. Yet again, best fish of the day from Chiphall.

 A shorter journal this time, dear reader, but with a cast of only three and the fishing fairly straightforward there isn’t a lot of scope for the playwright. I’ll try to do better the next time, but in the interim how about some feedback and/or comments?

.Tot de volgende keer.