The continuing adventures of the Fluff Club, Episode 58*

 

 The Fly Dressers Guild’s 45^th John Watts Competition at Draycote Water brought together Fluff Boys from ten branches; our particular branch being represented by the Professor, the Admiral, the Inspector and Whytee, travelling to the venue separately in keeping with Coronavirus best practice. I used mission control’s car, as mine is undergoing surgery presently, and the lack of sat-nav meant following an old-fashioned paper route, adding an extra twelve miles and nearly twenty minutes due to two wrong turns, but I’m blaming substandard roundabout signage, not my driving. It was just nine degrees C when I arrived, and it turned out to be the coldest August day since records began, the cold wind from the north pushing white horses along the water.

 Following the briefing from our Gen Sec I found my boat partner for the day, one MR from the Ringwood branch, we made our way onto the lurching boat dock where we were allocated boat number 13. “That’s cancelled out my wearing my lucky socks” I muttered darkly under my breath".

I agreed to be the skipper, and we headed for the far side, crashing through the waves, but as we closed on The Cornfield area the water surface quietened somewhat, due to shelter from the treed and sloping banks. We set the drogue and commenced the drift towards Farborough Spit, seeing no signs of any fish. The pattern soon formed, crash across to the north and drift back, gradually moving west covering ‘new’ water. Still nothing. The wind moved to the north east. We could see the other boats in little groups, dotted around. A few had motored to Rainbow Corner at the start, but vacated that area after an hour or so; the Valve Tower, the Aerators and Toft Bay had attracted small groups, others, like ourselves, kept busy going somewhere.

 MR and I changed flies, lines, tactics, depths, but all to no avail, the strong winds often played havoc with our back casts, so for a bit of relief I made for the westerly bit of Biggin Bay, to try fishing at anchor in the shelter.

We joined three other boats of the same mind. We noticed the odd trout splash at the surface, which renewed our optimism somewhat. We noticed the chap at the engine of the boat to our left catching two, and his boat partner added another after a while. We fished harder, suddenly I had a take, felt the fish, then in an instant it was gone. Half an hour later the successful boat moved away in the direction of Rainbow Corner/Hensborough Bank, but their place was soon taken by a new boat seeking some shelter. Sadly, activity seemed to have ended so I headed for the Valve Tower, aiming to drift from there across the Aerators in the direction of the sailing club, having spotted a number of boats doing just that during the morning. Just through the Aerators M had a sudden rise to a Big Red he had tied especially, but missed on the strike. That was to be the cessation of action to our boat, despite trying the same drift twice more. Next, we motored east to try a drift across the more sheltered Toft Bay, where we found a flotilla of Great Crested Grebes; neither of us had ever witnessed such a concentration before. We agreed it must be a sign of large shoals of small fish; optimism returned slightly and I switched to a cast of Fry Cormorants, but like my previous selections, the change achieved absolutely nothing.

 Time moved inexorably on. We tried the Aerators again, even seeing some trout swirl or jump, albeit few and far between. We had no doubt that trout were about, we just couldn’t crack the code. Cast after cast; the reader may have seen I had three hours of that in the last episode, I didn’t think I’d follow that up with another seven-and-a-half hours today! A wind-blown drizzle began to add to our none-fun. With an hour to go I was desperate to catch just one fish, to abet the team effort, but it was not to be. When my boat partner packed up with forty minutes remaining, I just knew in my gut it was not going to happen, so we headed for the dock, the first competing boat in. Two guys were unpacking at the jetty, and told us they had fifteen to the boat, using tube flies on Di3 lines; they also had an eight-inch screen fish-finder secured to the middle thwart!

 As the contestants began to return, we noted some fish had been outwitted, although we were not alone in blanking. In fact, the rod average turned out to be 3.5, quite respectable given the conditions and thanks to a number of eight, seven, and six bags. We all socially distanced for our post-match meal, after which the Chairman made the presentations. It was nice to speak to my boat partners of the prior two competitions: today Ralph had caught four and George one, but I won’t hold it against them. Happily, our team avoided bottom place despite the Inspector and I being skunked. New Haylie missed out on top place by just an ounce, otherwise it would have been four years on the trot!

 There’s no such thing as a bad day’s fishing, apparently. I’ll hold onto that as long as I can. This next picture is the closest I came to a trout, and the one after that shows you what the ducks thought of the conditions.

 Tot die volgende keer.

 

* 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.