I was out fishing on my club waters in Yorkshire on a stretch which has produced some magnificent fishing over the past two weeks. I had decided early yesterday that I would 'hunt my quarry'. The day was perfect for it. Low water conditions, blue sky and next to no wind. Now some would say that those conditions can be taxing to say the least. But not for me, I love them and reserve them for hunting big fish.
With a wide brim hat, a good set of polaroids and some soft hackled flies I was set to cover a good couple of miles of river.
You see, I learnt how to hunt fish in this manner in Tasmania. It was what we did. Spend hours polaroiding gin clear water over light coloured bottom tarns for trout cruising around for something to eat. The skies need to be clear and you keep thre sun over your shoulder. Perfect yesterday.
I spotted the first fish after no more than 10 steps along the bank. There he was, facing upstream in a little gutter not too far off the bank. I had a Heron Bloa on as a single fly and I placed it beautifully in front and just off the side. He moved, I struck and 1-0 to the fish.
No matter, it was early in the day.
I kept going and covered another 30 odd fish that I had spied in all the likely spots. Score 31-3 in favour of the fish. I had only gone about half a mile and had not yet got to the better water.
Time for a coffee. I sat on the bank, contemplated the world (of fly fishing of course) and eventually mused at what had happened to those fish. You see, I am not one for constantly changing flies. I percentage fish opting to cover lot's of water and thus lots of fish. But I looked into my fly box and spotted three of these:
I had forgotten about them but in the clear conditions it might just do the trick. On one of them went.
Well I spotted and covered another 100 odd fish yesterday and the score ended up 130 - 26. Not bad odds considering and I was extremely happy. I think I will use that fly a lot this season in a number of sizes.
So what about it?
Last year I spent a couple of days fishing in Italy with a couple of Czechs. These guys are experts at extracting fish and have some very definite views on flies and their profile. They like them slim and made of materials that do not absorb water.
From that lesson, I have been using a material called 'Body Quill'. It is a synthetic tape, quite thin that can be used to build bodies. I now use it on my nymphs instead of other materials like nymph skin etc.
Just look at the colours:
Now the interesting thing about this material is that the thicker you make it, the darker it gets. So you can build a body that is light at the tail and darker at the thorax. This photo does not do justice to is. Anyway, my CDC & Quill can be tied like this:
Hook: Kamasan B525 size 14 (the interesting thing about these hooks is that the size is actually one size less. This hook is more like a 16)
Thread: Trico Uni thread. You must use white with the body quills. Otherwise you lose transclucency
Body: Hends Body Quills. You can choose you colour (or even two colours). The body for this fly is the one on the left of the top row.
Hackle Three turns of natural CDC tied in by the tip. I love the CDC on this fly, it really yells out 'food' when wet.
I hop you like it
BTW: I'm off for a few weeks now. Going to Saudi Arabia doing a short consulting job. Yeah I know sand and all that but the money's good. I will be on line anyway but no more flies for a while.
I imagine that working well in smaller sizes too.