Anticipation of passing milestones

Alarmingly as the years pass by annual milestones seem to come ever closer together.  As February draws to a close it marks for me the passage of the dark nights of winter into the light days of spring . The first week in February has always seemed to me the week that the lengthening days really become noticeable ,  the grayling are now spawning in my local stream    The  snowdrops are blossoming in the hedge bottoms and under the midday sun the water starts to look alive again.

Although the season is still in the future March then becomes a time of frantic fly tying ,  checking lines and counting days .  Each new dawn increasing the anticipation of opening day . " Opening Day" that first day of the season. An annual  test of  reality over anticipation.  The anticipation is of a warm spring day with a smattering of large dark olives  taking to the wing around lunchtime with an accompanying chorus of rising fish.  The reality is that the day will probably be cold, windy with that miserable driving fine rain that soaks you through.  Not a single fly will take to the air , but I will fish the dry fly in hope and then spiders in anticipation of a moving fish  before opening my account on opening day becomes  urgent enough for me to cook the books by using a nymph.  Although I no longer resist fishing the nymph, in fact I have embraced the art over the last couple of seasons . I still cling to a romantic notion that a wild brownie on opening day on a dry fly is the perfect start to a season.

This year the lethargy that has been on me since christmas has meant that my fly tying has been non existent .  There are many jobs that need to be done.  There are a few new patterns that need to be added to my fly tying.  Lessons learnt and favours given by fellow anglers need to be added to my fly box. There too there is change my fly box of years ago had a multitude of flies mostly 14s and 16s . Now I find I have very few patterns but in sizes from 16 to 22 .  God bless Dave Southall for introducing me to his minimalistic micro midge a tiny fly thats long name is at odds with its astonishing ease of tying and a fly that caught me many fish last season.  It is one fly that will be an ever present in my fly box .  It will take its place among the old faithfull patterns I fish with the confidence derived from seasons long past.

If only life was like morphine

As winters go so far this one has become the crappiest ever.  After suffering the flu at christmas , With Christmas dinner becoming half a slice of toast and marmalade. Then after just about recovering from that in early January I was rushed into hospital for a couple of weeks of been confined to bed with drips , tubes in the most uncomfortable of places and sensors galore.Now its the first time in my life I have ever been in hospital , I think I can summarise my stay as follows. Nurses are wonderful creatures , hospital food is revolting and morphine is quite simply wonderful. But laying on your back pretty much immobile for the first week gave me lots of time to think and dream of summer evenings on the river.

Now what does yours truly think about when hes immobile well yes of course fishing: I had hour after hour checking through all my fishing gear in my head, in my mind putting rods to reels and sorting lines and flies every last detail analysed and thought about.

Clubs I am in were considered and some decisions made, after joining the chalk stream late last year after I had paid all my other subs I really ended up with a club to many, this year I will be leaving Masham angling on the Ure. As much as I enjoy it last year I visited on a very few occasions, once to find levels were way to high and twice late on in the year I had my sessions spoilt by Salmon anglers getting into the top of the pool I was already working up and proceeding to fish down them , harsh words were said . The truth is that salmon and trout angling dont really interact easily on the river.  Well not without a greater degree of consideration than was shown by the two dick heads I encountered.

During the long periods of dozing and staring at ceilings I even tried to go through the trips of the season.  Making a mental note of which flies worked and thinking ahead to restocking the fly boxes. Then trying to plan my spring tying to restock the boxes.

The best and worst bit of the stay was the drug induced dreams.  The worst was down to something called tramadol which gave me two nights of dreams of such lucidity I felt they were real . The third night the dream was such that I ended up out of bed, I would like to think I was imagining I was on the river bank, the reality is I cant remember but the reality is I ended up in a heap on the floor complete with drips tubes and a fair bit of my blood and other bodily fluids. After that the tramadol stopped and the morphine dose got greater and the dreams got pleasanter. During one morphine induced fishing trip I managed a brown trout of humongous proportions well into double figures caught on a home tied size 22 cdc on a hook that appeared to be invisible,  It even made the national newspapers.  If only life was like morphine, well you know what I mean.

Je suis Charlie.

I know this isnt a political blog ,  but yesterdays events in Paris remind us all of what a precious thing free speech is....and the irony is the freedom of speech that they would deny others is the very freedom that allows them to preach their intolerance.

Je suis Charlie.....

Of the mark....

Today despite the last remains of the flu that has laid me low over christmas still hovering about I decided that it was either my sanity or a couple of hours by the river  it has been many weeks since my last fix,  now the long suffering her indoors has been my ministering angel for the last ten days was less than impressed by me hastening my flu recovery by standing in a freezing river for a couple of hours , but in my mind the needs of the mind outweighed the needs of the body....anyway thats my logic anyway.

The fishing was as always for me when search nymphing for grayling in winter a little less than inspiring.   All the parts are there , the river, the fish , I have the rod and reel but like a chemical reaction without the heat it just doesnt fizz,  Dont get me wrong I enjoy the fix  but I guess its like a life long fag smoker using one of those weird little machines that everyone has stuck in their mouths. It hits the spot without ringing the bells and setting of the fireworks,   What I need is trout , sunshine and hatching flies.

Anyway the first fish of the year came along reasonably quickly a nice little graying about average for the river , this was followed by another three including one that was just about able to fit the hook in its mouth.  It was important I caught I hate blanks and a blank the first trip of the year would sit badly with me. The last fish of the day was another sodding rainbow.  The clubs insistence in stocking these things is a constant mystery to me.   I am yet to meet a fellow member that wants them in the river . Also I am told that they extend the trout season through october,  well perhaps they do but everyone I met on the river last October was after grayling .  

I have to say that the benefits of a well managed river were welcome to day the rope to haul myself up the bank was a very welcome sight today I finished the day well knackered but feeling that at least for a while the itch had been scratched.

Happy new year

Thanks to all you readers who keep coming back for more of my rambling ,  Apologies also for the lack of anything at all in the run up to Christmas,  I had a few thoughts on something but that will come in the next month or two .  Christmas this year taught me that having the flu is completely different to all those things that people glibly announce like I had a touch of the flu or I have had man flu.  No having the flu for the first time in my 50 plus years is like having all your joints cased in concrete  and then being run over by a truck.  This truck parks on top of you for a week making you unable to move without shivering or sweating .  I  suppose losing half a stone in a week can help with my usual get fitter New Years resolution .  Anyway one book that I had a copy of years ago was put on my wife's hints list and appeared on my sick bed on Christmas morning .  On the few occasion I could be bothered I have been reading it,  the simple fact and logic based approach makes for  a stunning read

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Apologies for the poor pic an iPad whilst in bed is not the best recipe for quality,   As for the book buy it , borrow or steal it will be a revelation .  

Reflections and thanks.....

The last month has seen my fishing activities grind to a complete halt , so anything truly fishing related  to write about is absent but there has been a sad event that certainly relates to my love of fly fishing.

In the last few months I have learnt of a teacher of mine who has sadly left us. My woodwork and craft teacher from when I was at boarding school at age 11. He was called Brian Guy, Brig to those who knew him,  looking back he was one of the most influential people in my younger days. He was also the first person I ever saw catch a fish on a fly. As a kid we used to bait fish in the river whiske near Thirsk.  One day whilst we were float fishing he was fly fishing. I can still picture him kneeling on the bank and casting to a pod of circling chub I was even trusted with the net to land one .  The fly was a very simple black gnat. The act of deception amazed me then as much as it still does now .  It truly was a inspirational moment in my life.  He was also a real guiding light at a time when things were not going well for me,  I think at the time the escape fishing offered was one of the few things that helped.  Sadly now he has gone and also sadly has the stream .  I have returned once to that river bank in the nearly half century since I watched him there, the clear water and streamer weeds and the shoals of roach and chub have been replaced with a fetid muddy channel that seemed totally bereft of life.  I would have liked to be able to return there and try to emulate that act of deception but sadly like Brig the river of my childhood has sadly departed.

 He was a guy who was capable of really surprising you  he had a great love of fishing and yet 10 or more years after I left school I met him at a reunion I asked him if he still fly fished, I find his answer as surprising now after another 20 or 30 years have passed as I did then , he said he loved to cast a fly and loved to rise a trout but he felt a deep sadness for the fish once he had hooked it . It was a conundrum that deeply troubled him. He was a remarkable man. If you can read this Brig thanks for everything not least for casting that fly and lighting that spark all those years ago.  There was a memorial service for him recently in Hawes in the Yorkshire dales, sadly I could not get there but the day it was on I sat for an hour and tied a few black gnats and one summer evening next year they will rise a trout for Brig.

Itchen grayling

Recently I was away down south and was lucky enough to receive an invite from my friend Peter ( he of walks and fishes blog) to fish a beat of the Itchen with him. Although I am now fishing a chalk stream on a regular basis the Itchen is one of those hallowed southern streams that carry a certain mystique.  So it was an opportunity to be seized  .  I arrived at three minutes past the appointed meeting up time due to the hideous southern traffic,  something  I was not happy about as to quote Norman Maclean " there's three things we're never late for: church, work and fishing" and personally I think fishing is by far the most important.  Being late for fishing is something I regard as pretty bad manners.  Peter however was oblivious to my late arrival. 

After a quick hello it was rig up and of fishing , Autumn days are pretty short affairs and time shouldnt be wasted on over indulgent pleasantries. After a quick demo from Pete on his tried and trusted rigs . I was away and fishing after 3 casts bingo fish number one .  I started with a two hook rig a size 16 bead head on point and a size 18 gammarus pattern on the dropper. It became apparent pretty quickly that I was picking up all the fish on the point fly and as the river obviously carried a very large head of fish I ditched the dropper shortly after starting,  

The top fish was pretty typical of the better fish I caught with perhaps 5 or 6 like that coming to hand the rest were smaller with a couple of tiny rainbows and a couple of very chunky OOS native brownies also throwing themselves in to the mix.  It is astonishing how many fish were in that length of river , some of the grayling were pretty big too with a few that looked around two pound. Sadly none of those decided to play ball. 

The river is very very pretty and even though it is into November the warm Autumn meant the trees still carried more than a hint of green.  The sunshine encouraged a hatch of olives and soon they were been intercepted by fish. So of went the nymph and on with the dry , catching a few on a dry was an unexpected bonus for me .  A short heavy shower killed the hatch and drove me back to the decent fishing hut where I found Peter also heading for cover. After the shower the rise disappeared so it was back on the nymph and another good few fish finished the day until we called it a day a little after three. 

The beat has two small fishing huts . I figure that this one doesnt see a lot of use. Not quite what I would expect from a posh southern chalk stream. I must say the beat did not appear to be over manicured there was plenty of weed and overhanging branches and plenty of stuff growing in the bank sides too. In fact as nice a stretch of river as I have seen for a while. 

One thing i did notice, the grayling seemed to be less steely in appearance than my local spate stream fish.  But they did seem to like the same bugs I use up north.  Personally my thoughts are with grayling they are pretty catholic with their tastes but I do think they get wary of seeing the same things,  I rarely use brass beads for that reason. I reckon i finished the day with about thirty fish . I probably could have caught a few more if I had stuck with the nymph instead of playing with the dry for an hour or so,  but fishing is about more than just catching ,,,