RH Fly Fishing

    The balmy, bright spring morning was punctuated by barrages of rifle fire somewhere nearby on Salisbury Plain, probably extra training in response to what’s going on in eastern Europe. Heavy ordnance chipped in from time to time, while various helicopters put in the odd appearance passing overhead, some pretty sinister looking. Bri and I chose Avon Springs because we haven’t fished it together for what must be ten years, and I was last here in 2015. It’s too good a fishery for that, and still reasonable VFM at 4 for £50. Why should Wiltshire generally be cheaper than Hampshire? The young Avon alongside is run by Fishing Breaks now, so we had Club ‘Lake’, 5 acres, and Spring ‘Lake’, 2.5 acres, at our disposal.  We both set up intermediate outfits, received wisdom suggesting it’s still time for lures until the spring advances a bit more. Last day of the coarse fishing season, BTW. Not wishing to incur any bad luck by going widdershins, we set off down the left hand b...

  “A fly at one end and a philosopher at the other” – Sir Humphry Davy     Molly M. (my sat-nav, now nearly 10) took me a route she hasn’t before; I saw some pretty bits of Berkshire on a bright, spring morning, splashing through the residue of obviously heavy overnight rain, along winding, country roads.   The Fluff Club have been to Barn Elms Fly Fishery a few times, the cursed Covid intervening since episode 44, nearly three years ago. Whytee was the first to arrive, the lodge still locked and deserted. You have to pre-book (and pre-pay), names are written on a black board, upon which you chalk your catch return before leaving. The proprietor does arrive to check who is fishing, during the course of a day, but all the Covid malarkey means there is no keeper at present, thus no tea, coffee or heating in the lodge. Worse, there is already a lot of weed, particularly blanket weed, which will be a growing problem, (see what I did there?). The recent storms have le...

 Bit of an update, apropos of nothing:  As well as this blog, the Fly Fishing Forum, Facebook, and Instagram, I've now started posting things on Twitter, while I try to get my head around that particular social [or is it antisocial?] medium.  Anyway, the photo above shows some flies I've tied recently. Ignore the three skinny ones at the back, which were given to me by a boat partner in a competition last year. The other three patterns are my most recent ties:  On the left are four Jig Prince Streamers, after Fly Fish Food's recent post; the middle three are black lures to fish on an intermediate this weekend, but I can't remember whose pattern they are variants of. The flies on the right are [my] unweighted Twinkle Nymphs for small-river fishing this coming spring and summer, and for casting to sighted fish in small stillwaters.  Tie on, brothers and sisters!