The continuing adventures of the Fluff Club, Episode 78 *

 

“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 two-fish tickets, not least because JO’G is one of those fisheries where the trout notoriously switch-off from lunchtime for three or four hours. The main ‘lake’ was carrying its usual colour, while Simms had a tinge of olive-green about it, although you could still spot fish hither and thither. Rainbows in twos and threes seemed to be on a mission, moving quickly into and out of sight. The smaller island had a couple of pods of fish, one quite large, swimming around the shallow shelf in a constant anti-clockwise direction. As you know from your witchcraft O’levels, heading widdershins is bad luck, … well it is for the fisher, anyway! You can always count on finding some fish down on the ‘lake’ bed where the springs bring the cool water in from the chalk aquifer deep below.

 The main pond and Simms were both benefiting from two petrol-driven aerators pumping away to help circulate oxygenated water, something I haven’t seen there before. There was the occasional stiff breeze from the south-east which helped us fishers from overheating, although it made casting difficult in places and also blew around great patches of surface scum containing dead water weeds and other vegetation, so that many casts were marred by picking up this detritus. Ho hum, just another hazard to contend with, as if my casting wasn’t hazardous enough!

 All the FB’s spread around Simms; it was definitely one of those days when changing flies and spots regularly made the most sense, hunting for fish that were willing to play ball. The Professor started in what Rodney calls ‘Gunslinger’s corner’. Working in OAP’s care means Rodney is still on a lockdown as such, and we haven’t seen him for some time. There were trout moving closer to the island, and the Professor had felt a couple of taps by the time Whytee passed him heading towards the far side. Over there Whytee tried casting to the shelf of the small island, targeting those constantly circling pods, but the detritus was building up at the surface and constantly snagged the fly, although some fish did appear interested. Next Whytee tried the springs in the deeper water close in, where shadowy shapes appeared and disappeared in the gloom, silhouetted against lighter patches on the bottom. Various flies were tried, even the usually successful Corixa pattern, to no avail.  The Professor took a small trout [smaller than usual for here], which gave all the FBs a boost. The Admiral had a tilt at the fish down in the springs while Whytee headed for his car to rehydrate and pick up some different fly boxes. Daisy, fishing near the aerator, had a number of fish to target but so far had only experienced a couple of slight tugs, those annoyingly unhittable ones.

 Back from the car with a couple of different fly boxes, Whytee continued targeting the close-in springs while the Admiral followed Moneypenny around behind the small island, towards the aerator. Moneypenny was on the point of giving up to head home early and glean extra brownie points, but paused to try a ‘Fordy’s quilled nymph’ sight-fishing moving trout. ‘Bang!’ was followed by ‘Wallop!’, two trout, two pounds and three pounds, in the space of fifteen minutes! Way to go! Moneypenny headed for home, beaming a satisfied grin. The Professor had already moved off to try the larger water. When a Rainbow at last found a pink-beaded Biscuit Md Blob to its liking, Whytee carefully played it into his net, whereupon the barbless hook slipped out as soon as the tippet’s tension relaxed. What a relief – skunk avoided! Lunch time, and more welcome hydration.

 After lunching in a cool breeze under the shade from one of the  trees, the four remainers sallied onto the banks in front of the car park, where there is deep water a rod’s length out, and spread out along the tree stumps like the old codgers do on a Thursday [possibly did, I don’t know what effect Covid19 has had]. Whytee gave it nearly half an hour before drawing stumps, Daisy moved around to the left hand side, while the Admiral went back to Simms. That’s that. I’ll find out how they fared at our forthcoming Fluff Club tying evening.

 Kuni jargmise korrani.

 

*  in which the names of the participants are pseudonyms in an effort to be as inclusive to others as possible, an attempt to attain the widest readership. I will be grateful for any comment the reader cares to make. Please ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ as it helps “spread the word”. Thank you.

                                        

                                          The village of Kings Somborne, down in the valley