Ed 18 No more boxing!

 

I started this back in Ed 16 but in the interval life-stuff kept getting in the way, until a couple of days ago, when I forced myself to make the time, no more excuses. 


    

                                           


  I pored over the whole lot one by one, rejecting anything I just didn’t like the look of, or idea behind, and those which just didn’t look like the tying was right. I’ll go through the rejects another time, continuing to sort them into two piles: those good enough to be give-aways, and those that will go to the blade, so that I can re-purpose the hooks and beads. It took hours and hours including some frantic scribblings of possible combinations or fresh ideas.



 The process has allowed me to reduce the fly box collection by a net four units, with an added bonus that I’ve achieved a modicum of colour identification. The ‘orange’ (i.e. highlighted) boxes contain my dry flies, the ‘green’ ones are for the rivers, holding jigs, nymphs, and spiders. The two larger boxes are now home to lures. Two smaller Grey’s boxes house Damsels, Cormorants, Muskins, specials, Snails, stalking flies, Corixa, cased Caddis, and space for new patters to be trialled; these boxes fit the breast pockets of my fishing vest, where they will be semi-permanent. The ‘blue’ box holds my Buzzers. The small ‘yellow’ pod contains the ‘Essential Seven’, supposed to cover every eventuality, and which I will actually get round to using one day. The other two, larger ‘yellows’ hold Daddies, Bristol Hoppers, Hare’s Ears, PTNs, Diawl Bachs and Crunchers.



 The untouched boxes still in my boat bag are a green aluminium box of fur-strip patterns, a Rainbow-patterned box of traditional wet flies, and two other ‘blue’ boxes for my Boobies and for Blobs.

 The wheat has been well and truly sorted from the chaff at last, and I am reasonably content. For now!

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments and/or feedback are always welcome

Popular posts from this blog

Summer long ago

Image
It’s a long time since I was sixteen, but one thing is still so vivid in my memory. My older brother was travelling, post uni, and my parents had taken me on a holiday to the west coast of Scotland, where they intended to tour from a base in a lonely, rented farmhouse right on the coast. Given the choice, I had elected to go fishing rather than suffer all that mileage in the back seat of the car every day. Plenty of small but obliging brown trout kept me fully occupied in the tiny pools and riffles of the burn as it cascaded down toward the sea. My supply of flies began to dwindle, but they were all scrounged from adults anyway, I still had plenty in hand for fishing the whole length of tumbling burn until I reached the first of four tidal pools down on the rocky shore, where I hoped I might encounter a sea-trout for the first time. By the third day, there I was, carefully casting my way along the first of those pools, when a soft, lilting Scottish voice nearly made me jump out
Read more

Ed 10 TCAOTFC Prequels update

Image
As mentioned in Prequel D, now that fishing is out of Covid-19 lockdown (let’s hope permanently), there’s little point in slavishly posting more TCAOTFC Ps because we can fish again, obviating the need for a fishing read. Here, then, is a synopsis of the eight outstanding Ps, albeit lacking a lot of detail, due to minimalist log entries!   E . A trip to Chalk Springs, attended by the Admiral, Professor, Turner, Sailor, Dell-boy, Rodney, Lumberjack, Jackdaw, Moneypenny, and Whytee. Mid-spring, last night’s temperature was down to 3 C., but expected to rise to 10, with strong winds and showers blowing from the north-west. Most of the gang pulled into Fontwell’s Little Chef for breakfast, before the short hop to the fishery. Always a good way to start a day’s fishing. We rigged-up and dispersed about the four ‘lakes’. Moneypenny caught from the off, taking five Rainbows from the same swim o South, all before the fishing became challenging. Squalls, even hailstones and the chopp
Read more

The Continuing Adventures of the Fluff Club, Episode 5

Image
The names of the Fluff Boys are disguised and the venues un-named, to protect the innocent! At the preceding tying evening seven of us put up hands for a breakfast start to the latest trip, and uncannily seven actually turned up. Are we making progress as a group or was this a fluke? Our organisational abilities and arithmetic seem to be on the up. Having fed and watered we assembled our gear and ambled off, enjoying this fine spring morning, listening to a brace of feuding Woodpeckers with their guns set to rapid fire, and some Chiffchaffs trying to make up for their lack of melody by turning the volume up to 11; the sun shone through in spells, and there was just a light breeze. Gorgeous. During the breakfast craic most had decided to elect for just 2-fish tickets, apart from two fool hardies who had each gone for a 4, yours truly being one. The Lumberjack asked me if I was at all confident, and I replied my intention was to try for a fish from each of the three ponds. The
Read more