Road
trip and other stories
firstly
apologies for the slight delay (actually a week and a bit late) on
the blog post this was due to leaving my camera in conan the fly
destroyers car and not getting it back till today .
So we had
arranged to travel into the badlands of England to fish piketreks
competition on the 20th and the reason we decided to fish
it was there was the chance of a couple of species we don’t get in
Scotland I.e. chub and zander and also it was for a very good cause
and well any excuse for a fishing road trip.
First
things first though the destroyer wanted to get some practice in on
tying predator flies although conan ties his own quite outstanding
trout flies he’s not really had much experience doing monster flies
for pike well even a 1 inch pike fly is a monster if you come from a
background of tying on size 22s but he’s had a couple of lessons
from me already and hes coming along in leaps and bounds and
producing already some bloody nice flies to be honest , but he still
wanted a few more lessons and I was glad to help (mates rates of
course that’s the blueberry doughnuts sorted for the trip)
the
fine art of a simple maribou fly
we have lately been tying up with a lot of synthetics so it was nice
to go down the natural materials route again especially after the
success of the last trip with the my biggest fish of the year coming
on a weighted maribou streamer of course teaching conan is a breeze
once ive shown him a method he pretty much picks it up straight away
and produces an almost perfect replica (unlike kenyans) I suspect
next season there will be quite a lot of these in his box
the art
of synthetic pt 1
one thing conan really wanted to nail was tying with synthetics
because everybody falls into the same trap with it and that is tying
it too thick and even when it first appeared in this country I did
the same , well to be honest at that time there was no step by steps
out there to help pretty much all you had was a picture of a
saltwater fly and a clump of you chosen colour in your hand and
that’s it now get on with it and although after a few attempts I
came up with some passable looking pike snacks but they were now
looking back made with way too much material , so now we have reached
the point where as you can see from my fly above pretty much
translucent baitfish I mean you can see the hook shank through it
which is really what you want , so conan had I think fallen into that
same trap as most of us did when we first started with synthetics so
it was great to be able to show him how to do it. So the first one I
approached with him was ep fibre the very first synthetic I used for
pike flies way back when it first appeared over here yes folks I have
been doing it that long.
The boy
did good
so after just one lesson and 1 fly here’s the result and I tell you
you’d struggle to match the tier to the fly if you didn’t know ,
well I can tell you conans is the top fly id say he’s pretty much
nailed that , you see how easy it is when somebody shows you there’s
no such thing as stupid question if you don’t know the answer (of
course that doesn’t apply to ken capsey who lets face it has asked
some pretty dumb ones in the past but he is a redneck so I guess we
can let him off) so if I can help people not to make the mistakes I
did when synthetics hit these shores then that’s job done
conan was very keen on using gliss and glint plus from
www.deercreek.co.uk as he
had seen these patterns in action and what they look like in the
water (unfortunately no camera has yet managed to capture that) and
had seen me tying with it at last years British fly fair so he was
keen to get that nailed as well the material itself sits nicely
between ep fibre and sf fibre which you may have used before as
gliss is not as soft as ep but not as stiff as sf so you can get some
pretty fluid moving baitfish out of it and its also a lot bloody
cheaper that the afore mentioned products but there’s a place for
most materials just some are better than others , a good afternoons
tying lesson was had and it was time to get stuff ready for the trip
.
Travelling
light
as there’s no boats involved on this trip I scaled stuff down a bit
and only took around half my boxes taking only flies that I knew
would do the business and let me tell you it took a few days to sort
that one out as I needed to combine not only flies for pike but also
for perch , chub ,and zander it took me a while but I got there other
that in the picture above I took a couple of pikesabers (one to use
and a spare) and a net and that was pretty much it so with Friday
fast approaching it was time to hit the sack in preparation for the 5
and a half hour journey south
the
long road
so the morning came and conan had arranged to pick me up at 10am as
he had a doctors appointment and I needed to wait for the postman to
get a prize from deercreek for the comp , as it happens conan didn’t
pick me up till 11am as he had his appointment time wrong then had to
wait ages to be seen but it was all good as this gave the postman
time to arrive (10.30) and me a chance to make sure I had everything
before we left .
Everything being in order and now sat in the hairy one car we headed
south , now the picture above is heading down towards the border
around an hour from Edinburgh and look at those lovely clear roads as
soon as we got into England the road turned into pretty much a giant
long car park maybe it just because England’s got some many more
city’s crammed into it so there’s more need for people to travel
to each others towns therefore creating the awful traffic situation
we found ourselves in , oh well we wernt in a hurry so not a massive
problem and besides gave us more time to eat the in car doughnuts
We planned to get to the hotel (in the middle of nowhere) a couple of
hours before dark then head to the venue (about 5 miles away) and
fish around an hour into dark then head off and get some food in
melton mowbray (yes conan there is such a place its not made up to
sell pork pies) but sometimes the best laid plans can go a bit to pot
through no fault of your own
as we passed stoke on Trent on a duel carriageway a car passing us
spat up a stone and cracked the window , one of those things and
nobody’s fault so with little choice we carried on to the services
at derby where we surveyed the damage and hell there was a kfc there
as well (no we didn’t indulge we were still full of doughnuts)
turns out that we were safe to carry on to the hotel as it was only
around 60 odd miles from where we where so we carried on at a steady
rate trying to avoid potholes and bumps in the road …
Arrival
our original plan was to get checked into the travelodge a couple of
hours before dark ,then go and show conan the venue , I used to have
a membership here when I lived in derby many moons back so I knew the
venue quite well and the plan was to give him a walk through and show
him some spots and features then head into melton for some food then
back to the hotel to have a beer and some fishing chat, but with the
cracked window and some trouble finding the hotel meant we didn’t
get there till after dark so those plans were also sunk but not
really a problem .
I had a few things to finish of on some flies so I broke out the
diamond hard uk and got on with it while we had a cup of coffee and a
replan for the evening ,we decided just to head straight into melton
and find some food ,so we headed of and took around 20 mins to get
there and about another 2 hours to find somewhere to park ,
ridiculous that we had to drive round for hours to find a parking
spot everywhere we looked there were no parking signs we eventually
just parked outside a shop and hoped for the best luckily a few shops
down there was a nice looking Indian restaurant and also very cheap
and the guy said there was customer parking at the back of the
building , that was enough for us .
I opted for a tandoori selection with popadoms and pickles and a
selection of fine indian breads conan had something that I really
could even pronounce let alone spell but it was made with lamb , what
was funny was that being a friday night everybody was out dressed up
in the finery with works nights out and people having romantic dates
over candlelight meals then there was was me and conan dressed in our
fishing gear not giving a single one we did get a few looks and
shaking heads from the waiters but the food was great and hit the
spot no doubt next time we go back there will be a “NO SCOTTISH
FLY FISHERMAN” on the door cant think why though
after this we headed back to the hotel (worryingly in the middle of
nowhere ) funnily enough it actually sits on the famous fosse way one
of the oldest roads in Roman Britain road runs from Exeter (Devon) in
the South to Lincoln (Lincolnshire) in the North, forming one of the
main routes in Roman Britain. But I bet they found there hotels and
inns a lot easier than we did on the way back we actually thought we
were going to run out of fuel looking for it but that’s a whole
other story . We eventually got back to the hotel in one piece and as
we had booked a family room (saves money) so there was only one
double bed and a sofa bed , so to keep things fair we flipped a coin
and conan got the bed I got the couch so we both settled down and
agreed on a movie that was showing (rocky 5) but I was so knackered I
fell asleep pretty quick and before we knew it it was 6am time for
coffee and out the door …
on to
the competition
the competion has some fantastic prizes on offer and we even had a
sponsor for the food after the event so awesome sausage rolls and
bacon rolls for breakfast went down fantastic , I bought down a
voucher for a days guided fishing on
private trout fishery with me from authanic wire at
www.fastflies.co.uk there
was some hook and fly packs donated by the lovley chaps at
http://www.spanglefish.com/hookeyeandfly/index.asp
and a fantastic selection of eyes and diamond hard uv from the ever
generous nick at
www.deercreek.co.uk
and in this day and age its great that small company’s step forward
and provide a few prizes so please go check them out …....and for
those companies who didn’t donate prizes to the raffle for charity
shame on you
my favorite spot of the whole day
(Conan just out of shot stuffing sausage rolls down his fizzog)
so suitably full of sausage rolls and bacon rolls and enough coffee
to keep us going for a week and we finally set out , conditions were
good on the lake although the river was blown out so a slight change
of gameplay was called for and we had planned to hit a few spots that
I knew of and had done ok on before, so I tied and a “gliss and
glint fat boy buster baitfish” and we hit the 10 min walk to our
starting point
we hit the spots and started casting around almost straight away I
had a hit but failed to connect so I covered the area for a few casts
and then moved on a few yards leapfrogging with conan as we went I
had a further 2 hits in the space of around 10 mins one being right
close to the bank and silver (zander maybe who knows) but again it
didn’t connect this was getting a little frustrating
so I scaled down to a smaller fly this usually works for me if the
fish are taking short so after about 30 mins absolutely nothing was
happening for me or pretty much anybody else although id seen one
chap land a pike of around 4lbs but obviously the underwater dinner
bell hadn’t run yet then after another cast me fly felt a bit
strange in the water and then I saw why I had hooked a watersnail ,
now the competition rules say that if it takes a fly is classed as a
predator well this was caught fair and square so I duly recorded it
and had it witnessed to much head shaking surley a fish would follow
soon
ok so after another move further round the lake and to add insult to
injury a large swan mussel decided to take a liking to my fly as you
can see it is hooked fair and square so again this was duly
photographed and witnessed as it had in fact taken my fly fair and
square to much hilarity from the cream of British pike fly fishing on
the pegs around me .
By this time id spoken too a few anglers who had passed andf stopped
for an informal hello hows it going and it seems that very little was
actually coming out although a 13lb fish had come out to a local fly
fisher who fishes the venue all the time (knowledge is everything I
guess) but nobody else was doing anything so there was still a chance
as I said the before the river was pretty much blown out by recant
rains and was carrying a lot of colour although this didn’t stop
some people from trying to get one out by any means possible even
cheating by fishing off the bridge mentioning no names (Richard todd
lol) the river had it had been its normal flow and colour would have
produced quite a lot of fish so that was half the battle plan
scuppered …..oh well
this venue has some great backwaters and cover spots but its a hell
of a job trying to get a fly into them but hey who dares wins and I
had no choice as thing were getting desperate and there was only an
hour left to fish so I tried my damnedest to get one out and if it
meant a 50% chance of getting stuck up a tree then id just have to
try it real bloody commando type fishing this . But still to no avail
and not even a touch of the fly I was seriously realising now that
the fish were simply not having it today and ive had days like this
before , in fact I remember fishing with Ernie firth on a midlands
reservoir from a boat and sight casting to fish in shallow water in
fact I was getting the fly right past there noses and they showed no
interest at all it was like they were sleeping in fact at one point I
had a big 20lb plus fish rise up from deeper water inches behind my
fly ernie spotted it but what he didn’t spot was the fish
underneath it that dwarfed the one following my fly at about 8 ft
depth they both stopped and sank back down out of site , that is one
vision that still haunts me to this day , im sure we have all had
those moments before …..
so with the dying mins of the comp left we headed back to the sailing
club and there met with the other competitors and it seems we wernt
the only ones to struggle today I mean we had some of the best names
in British pike fly fishing here today and everybody said it was
tough but hey thats fishing for you , but it was great to take part
make some money for a great cause and meet loads of new people and
some old friends for some great banter .
My self and conan the fly destroyer decided to stay on till dark , as
the comp finished at 3pm and there was an hour for the prize giving
raffle and food so with the sunset hour upon us which we know can be
a great time for predators we decided to throw a few around into dark
but still we didnt do anything worth a try though.
so with heavy heart we called it a day and headed back north finally
getting back to Scotland sometime just before dawn of course stopping
at a motorway services for a burgerking im not quite sure what kind
of voodo motorway burger magic makes you stop at 2am for an £8.00
burger but we did bloody tasty actually …...hey there’s always
next year
----------
I have to give a big shout out to the lads at
www.pikeflyrod.com
and especially uncle greg and scalsey who really looked after
everybody fishing the event boys your stars , well done on a cracking
event see ya next year
see ya next year frisby great venue not easy but great venue with some fantastic staff
oh and one last thing folks .
NEVER EVER LEAVE YOUR CAMERA IN YOUR MATES CAR
(this is the only one I could publish on a family friendly blog
the other pictures involved bananas and a face mask
next week me and the destroyer will be doing something completely
different
take care and stay safe folks
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)
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