RH Fly Fishing

   Why tie flies? They’re not very expensive (classic Salmon flies apart), so why not just buy? It’s conceivable to go fly fishing with just one fly, until it falls apart with wear or is broken off in some marauding tree, but what if your one fly represents something the fish just don’t want to eat that particular day? Obviously, you need some different types to hedge your bets. In any aquatic habitat there will be many food items: nymphal, pupal and adult forms of mayflies, sedges, chironomids, stone flies, alder flies, damsels, dragon flies, crane flies, water beetles; also shrimps, hog lice, aquatic worms, leeches, tadpoles, fish eggs, prey fish, and many more microscopic bugs. Terrestrial insects can end up in the water, and they number thousands of distinct species. All living things experience growth, so size is another factor to consider. Colour is another consideration.  Inevitably, you need more than a few. My own fly collection now runs to seventeen fly boxes,...

    Once in a while you feel you ought to acknowledge something, if just to pass it on: the other week, on YT, I came across a Tightlines Video Production, with the very excellent Tim Flagler narrating. The method used for tying in the wing is fantastically easy, even my first attempt at it produced a happy result!   In the attached picture are versions I’ve tied in moments of free time over the last couple of days, the colours of the flies depicted are, clockwise from top left, Midge, Rusty Spinner, Tan, PMD, BWO, and six in an Adams grey. The dubbing was Orvis Spectrablend, Dry Fly.   The fly in the video is a version of Fran Betters’ ‘The Usual’ [a great name for when you get asked “What did you get that one on?”]. This variant used Enrico Pugilisi fibres for the tail/wing, instead of Betters’ Snowshoe Hare, or even Calf Tail.   Now, I happened to buy a pack of EP -Ultra Brush, 5” wide, some years ago at a BFFI. The pack contained 6 brushes, each about ...

  “Good people drink good beer” – Hunter S. Thompson   There’s no such thing as a bad day’s fishing: you can have a hard day, a tough day, bad weather, bad conditions, but your day fishing is never bad per se. You can fish badly, but any day on the water in our beautiful countryside, doing what we love to do, is never going to be bad … granted, however, there are many degrees of good !   Five of the Fluff Boys descended the bumpy lane to the John O’Gaunt fishery: the Professor, Admiral, Moneypenny, Daisy, and Whytee. For the statisticians amongst you, the Fluff Club last visited this venue fourteen months ago in episode 65, prior to that in 20, 23, 32, 35, 42, 53, and 56. You might say its one of our regular haunts, we certainly group haunted it today, there were only two others fishing. Being right in the midst of this current hot spell, amber weather warnings and all, with temperatures heading into the 30s in the next couple of days, it was prudent to go for just t...

    Back in Ed 25 I wrote some guff mainly about angling writing prior to the realm of all-pervading social [some say antisocial] media; back then modesty was much more important than self- gratification. I used a photo which was a glimpse a couple of the things I write my habitual scrawlings into, but gave no explanation otherwise. To put that right and expand upon it, here is a new photo!   The original depicted my fishing log, religiously completed each time I go fishing, lying on top of that was my fishing notebook. The first part of that notebook is a list of fisheries, one per page, with their addresses, phone numbers, and post codes for the sat-nav. On the reverse of each page I record the better captures’ weights and dates, giving me a record of PBs per each fishery. The second part of the book holds a list of my rods and their line weight ratings, then a list of reels and spools, also detailing line types and weights, with the lines’ date of purchase. The remai...