The continuing adventures of the Fluff Club, Episode 55*

 That horrible hiatus officially ended a few weeks ago, and the Fluff Club soon arranged a trip which I unfortunately had to miss, due to the impending arrival of another grandchild, the handsome Rufus. Water under the bridge now, but I made it to this one … and what a one it turned out to be: some awesome fishing!

 A while ago we formed a fledgling competition faction within the FC ranks, the reason being that four of us thought that the competitive spirit is a good and natural thing, and that taking part in flyfishing competitions can only improve our standard and knowledge. Our ‘match secretary’, the Inspector, coined the name ‘Wessex Flyers’ and since then entered us in the Guild’s Spring Bank competition and two John Watts’ Trophy ones. We felt we were improving, a degree at a time, but still a very long way from the top! This year we booked two teams of two into the Scierra Pairs heat at Chew; then postponed by the plague until now! Fifty percent of us, however, have never fished Chew before, so this was going to be very interesting. We previously drew lots to establish the pairings: Professor and the Admiral in one boat, with the Inspector and Whytee taking t’other.

Chew, looking moody under the overcast sky

 Chew ‘Lake’ is about two hours away, and I was there before eight in the morning. Social distancing and all the other new rules were carefully observed, and the car park gradually filled. Most of the gathering were obviously part of the ‘reservoir scene’ and knew each other, lots of banter and leg-pulling ensued, in dialects that also included Welsh and Scottish. It seemed to me that most had already been on the ‘lake’ for practice, despite boats only being available for the past day or so. One chap told me there were loads of fish about, that one of the guys caught over forty in a practice session; he didn’t tell me where though, but did impart that the North end, Denny, and the False Island (or was that Roman Shallows?) would be a waste of time. Our first error: no practice, no idea. We queued in our pairs, six feet gaps all round, and got into our boats one at a time as directed, all as per the excellent safety video that Bristol Water put on-line. Ten of the morning saw the rolling start, when the armada instantly split into two, one group making ESE to the far shore, t’other making SW past Villice Bay for Herons Green Bay. I ‘had the motor’ in our boat, while the Admiral (who else?) performed naval manoeuvres in the other. Purely by chance, both our craft were following the Herons Green Bay posse. This was our second error, as the eventual best scores all fell to the other shore, even though it was overall a close fought thing!

 The Inspector and I pulled up short and tried a drift somewhere around Nunnery, because we both thought it looked really good, our error number three. We should have stuck with the stampede; when we shortly re-joined them, a few were already into their second drifts, possible even third, and we began to spot bent rods! We made our way to the back of the queue of drifting boats crossing the Bay. The Inspector and I had armed ourselves with intermediate and floating line outfits. The only info I had been able to glean beforehand was on-line reports from bank anglers, suggesting the ‘washing line’, or damsels deeper, had been doing the business. It transpired that neither the Inspector nor I could make a floating line approach work, but we later found that the Admiral had caught all three of his fish on the ‘washing line’. The Professor, however, and perhaps contrarily to our scant information, caught all of his eventual nine using flies with black in them, in particular catching most on a black & green ‘snake’; he also dropped at least a further six! The target for each pair was sixteen trout to the boat, plus time bonuses to be added for unused competition time, i.e. finishing earlier than the allotted seven hours of the heat.

 The Inspector and I worked away steadily, barring the odd mishap and tangle, noticing some appeared to be catching on almost every drift, occasionally even doubling-up. My first trout came to my Wossname on the point of the intermediate, as did my second. The Inspector took one using the BFD, and my third took a Biscuit Blob on my dropper. Next up I struck into what felt like a real good ‘un, but after playing it for a few minutes it came off. Cursing repeatedly seemed to help. One area, in front of an ice cream van parked on-shore, produced a lot of taps and tugs which I just could not connect with, and I was beating myself up about this for two drifts before the Inspector caught a little Perch, thus providing the explanation! In all, I caught two of the stripy bandits while the Inspector boated three, the last of which was big enough for a photo! His second trout took a sulphur yellow Daddy of his own devising, (the bigger Perch liked it too). I caught another ‘bow on the Wossname, and next drift a four-pounder took the Kennick Killer now on the dropper, which fish I was very relieved to net safely. To the south of our ice cream landmark we found a sheltered area where we could see some fish topping in the slick calm, here we tried dries again, but it just didn’t feel right so we moved back into the wind. The Inspector hooked a fish that fought deep and hard, making several strong runs before breaking the tippet. I had a strong feeling that both losing good fish was a real set-back for our prospects. My next trout ought to have made four pounds but was in poor condition and had lost weight: there were two open stab wounds on its left flank and another on its right!

 We began to realise that boats in the Bay were becoming progressively fewer and fewer, but hadn’t noticed whether they were heading back towards the lodge or to try fishing elsewhere. We also noticed that the Admiral and Professor, with drogue ropes extended behind, remained exactly in the same place where we had first noticed them, it transpired the drogue was stuck on a weed bed or some other snag. As the afternoon wore on, we noticed the Admiral sitting back in his seat, looking totally relaxed, while the Professor fished hard. I remarked to the Inspector that the Admiral looked as though he was chilling in the Wardroom with a very fine bottle of Port!

 The Inspector caught a third trout, then on the next drift dropped another one shortly after the strike, then I caught my seventh, and smallest, Rainbow. The other FB boat headed for the boat dock; I thought “surely they can’t have suddenly jumped to sixteen?” but in fact they had done all they could with twelve to the boat, which was two more than our total. The last couple of hours had simply flown by, we were into the final hour. I hooked another fish on our penultimate drift, but must have played it too hard in my anxiety to get to eight fish, because the hook pulled out. That was the end of our sport.

Goodbye, ice cream van

 With fifteen minutes to go we motored, alongside the only other remaining boat, towards Woodford Lodge. There were no other boats in sight, all were already docked.

Once tied up and unloaded, I performed an elaborate ballet step when getting onto the dock, almost whacking both my rods onto the handrail. I’m sure that must have raised some mirth amongst the crowd of anglers atop the bank, by the lodge, waiting for us stragglers to weigh-in. The other boat we’d accompanied back enquired how we had done, I replied that lost fish had cost us dearly, before the chap who had asked revealed their pairing had sixteen before mid-day, and had been out fishing C&R for the whole afternoon just to pass the time until they could find out which four pairs had got through to the final! A bombshell! The results astonished me. All boats, apart from the FC/Wessex Flyers’ ones, had completed their sixteen fish limits, furthermore five pairs had finished before noon, earning big time bonuses. The top pair were actually timed back at the dock for 11.00, having started at 10.00, and had motored across the ‘lake’ for at least ten minutes each way, meaning they had brought sixteen trout to their boat in less than forty minutes fishing! Moreover, their total weight was over fifty pounds! Staggering. Outstanding. On the drive home, however, my thoughts ranged from ‘like shooting fish in a barrel’, to darker ‘gillnets secretly set during yesterday’s practice, harvested today’, even ‘caught yesterday, kept hidden in cool boxes until today’, and so on and so forth. The reality is simply the gulf between novice competitors and those that fish the reservoir circuit most weeks, Covid-19 permitting. Thus, the Fluff Boys took the bottom places, but somebody has to be last. For us, the only way is up, baby. Just don’t hold your breath.

*in which the names of the participants are pseudonyms in an effort to be as inclusive to others as possible, in an attempt to attain the widest readership. I will be grateful for any comment the reader cares to make. Thank you.