Off the Log #3

Off the log #3

 This one certainly harks back a while, over twelve years actually, to a day when my buddy and I must have been feeling flush, thus lashing out for a six fish permit for each of us. It was late summer/early autumn, and warmth, sunshine, but thankfully a nice breeze to ruffle and break-up the water surface. Purely by chance, the venue was the same as in Off the log #1, i.e. John O’Gaunt Trout Fishery; well, I did mention it had become sort of a spiritual home (although in recent years I’ve rarely made it there more than three times, annually).

 Back then, I fished heavier lines than I do nowadays, because my casting was often less than mediocre, and I needed line weight to cast reasonable distances. I set up a 9’ 6” #7 weight intermediate outfit, and for back-up or a change in approach, I rigged up a 9’ #6 floating line outfit. We headed over to the far bank of the main body of water and within the first hour we had each banked our first trout, resulting in our customary celebration with a beer. Within the following hour we both doubled our score. Both of my stocker Rainbows came to my ‘copper bead-head Dawson’s Olive variant’, whereas B had caught on a ‘Pink Sheilah’, then on a yellow, gold-bead lure after I reminded him that he always used to do well at this fishery using flies incorporating yellow. I remember feeling a bit smug because my patterns were working so well, but didn’t voice it.

 Now we moved over to the smaller, ever-clear, Simms ‘lake’, which soon provided me with a third fish to the ‘DOv’, this one a two-pound Brown. Bri took another Rainbow on the yellow thingy, after which we agreed we ought to reduce our catch rate or face the possibility we would be finished and off the water by lunchtime. We hadn’t noticed any fish rising so it seemed a good idea to do some prospecting with a dry fly approach, taking it in turns to use the #6 weight floating set-up. There were no other anglers on Simms so we were able to potter around, casting hither and thither with a black, silver-ribbed, ‘Shipman’s Buzzer’ on the business end. This brought us another fish each, both Brownies, around two pounds. It seemed the fishery must have bought a job lot of Browns from the Houghton fish farm! Four in our respective bass bags meant it must be lunch o’clock. We took our time eating despite being aware this fishery often takes a siesta from 1pm to after 3pm, during which it can be hard to tempt a fish. That certainly would ‘slow us down’, nevertheless we had the rest of the day to reach our targets of six, so we enjoyed a spot of relaxing in the sun. Everything seemed right in the cosmos, until my big mouth uttered something along the lines of “the flies I tie are doing pretty well for us today”. Too late! I suspected I had just jinxed us, but didn’t say that in case it made things even worse, whilst continually thinking ‘pride always comes before a fall’.

 Back to the fray, we continued taking turns with my rod, now armed with a copper-ribbed, yellow -cheeked Buzzer of my devising, fishing ‘on the drop’ with the breeze moving the fly line round in an arc. I soon caught another of those Brown stockers, then handing the rod to B for his turn. He cast towards the gap between the two islets, the line moved and Brian fought and landed a seven-pound Rainbow, by far best of the day and his own PB at that time.

There was my come-uppance!

We couldn’t find any more willing fish to the Buzzer or the Shipman’s, despite fishing hard. In the end we thought reverting to the lures approach might work so I took down the #6 weight, and we returned to our other rods. I caught another stocker Rainbow on that DOv, just before Bri took our last fish of the day, this time a six-pounder ‘bow! Obviously, that was ‘fishing justice’ rubbing my nose in it, and so as not to offend the fishing spirits any further I made a conscious, determined effort not to think at all about who tied the green Fritz/white Marabou CW variant that caught that fish!

 There is always a lesson to be learned.

This turned out to be a bit of a prelude to the next Episode of the Fluff Club's continuing adventures, but was entirely accidental! I had forgotten that's where we were destined.