a fluffers progress pt 1

so I'm back from a few days romping round after predators on the fly , and i was joined by a top bloke by the name of tony harkin now tony has only just joined the pike fly fishing association after being fed up of paying £70.00 a day for trout fishing in his local area for easy to catch stocked trout , absolutely disgusting paying that sort of cash for bloody trout .

anyway tony decided a couple of months ago to look for something else to fish for and he came upon our motley bunch of fruit loops and decided to give it a go , so back in November he joined me for the annual fenland flyer and although hardly anybody caught anything and despite my best efforts we could only get fish nipping at flies , but this didn't put tony off and a repeat was arranged .

so we turned up and we were faced with massive flooding on the river but not to worry we still had the other drain to fish and that was pretty much normal level so we would get some fishing in



so as the first morning dawned we were faced with freezing conditions but nothing keeps a good pike fly fisher down and although it was freezing we still found a couple of clear bits in the ice to fish into and i was determined that tony was having not only his first pike but his first pike on the fly , after an hour hoping around the first venue we had little interest so a move was planned and we headed of quite a few miles to the next spot



so we turned up at the next spot and what a difference not a bit of ice and looking very pikey



so OK i look like the village idiot but i tell you a good woolly hat makes all the difference when its cold you lose around 90% of your body heat through your head so cheers to ken for the under armour i think it will take off big time and if you a UK angler lookout for this as its the warmest I've ever had and at no time was i ever cold .....



so tony has really improved his casting skills since the fenland flyer and was casting the big flies no problem at all and seemed to be loving ever minute of it and not very worried about the lack of fish we continued on regard less and it was soon time for a breakfast break and a discussion on what to do next i was determined to get him his first fish .....

tony pretty much had the same fly on for 3 days i however as a tier loved to chop and change and see what was visible in the murky water how the flies worked etc etc sometimes this can be my down fall at times but I'm happy with what I'm doing.

NAILED


so while mucked around with flies and colours etc etc i managed to nail a fish of around 8lb beautifully marked and fighting fit i did notice that the fish had leeches on it so it had probably been sitting on the bottom inactive for a while the fact i was using a very slow strip and pause which would have kept the fly just inch's off bottom kinda bore out the fact that although the fish were there they were being pretty docile ....

i was pretty annoyed as i wasn't to worried about catching fish i really wanted tony to catch and despite him having a couple of close calls he didn't get one that day so we headed back of to the pub for a shower and a meal , but i told him not to worry to much as tomorrow i could feel it in my bones that he would catch one.

did he catch well let me tell you tune back in tomorrow evening for a real gob smacking shocker , you really wont want to miss part 2 with a day filled with shock and surprise

tight lines and thanks for tuning in
mcfluffchucker
(back in my cave in Scotland)