StreamX Newsletter

CPS River Festival. Before you say 'oh no, not again' there is something very different this year in that there is a record number of women attending. This is not being mentioned to get the men excited, but rather a message to the ladies that this is a good year to attend. Secondly, this is also the first year that (accompanied) children are allowed. If you move quickly there may still be a few slots.

Dizzy and Tree fish. Trees aren't usually trout habitat occasionally a trout finds itself using one temporarily. Laughing is generally mooted as good medicine, so laughing and fishing has to be good strong medicine. Thus I found myself very healthy a few weekends ago while fishing the Holsloot.
Perched behind a big rock, I was watching a fish slowly cruising the pool in front of me. Trying to guess it's movement I put a fly out which met with success. That's when the laughter started. The fish took off into the air heading right towards me, dived, then came out high again and straight into a tree.
Now I had a largish fish thrashing in a tree, and trying to protect my delicate tenkara tip I moved closer and gave the fish enough slack to fall into the water, where is spun round in circles. My line was threaded through the tree and my rod tip in danger of breaking, so the only thing to do was try and grab the fish, which was fortunately successful.

But that isnt the dizzy fish I was referring to. There were small white mayflies rising all over, and I was catching reasonably regularly. Suddenly the fish went quiet and my first thought was that I has spooked the fish. Then I noticed the hatch had finished so it appeared it was time to change flies and tactics. But being optimistic I kept throwing out the fly and kept catching the odd fish. Here was a lesson learnt. Fish do not stop feeding when the hatch ends, as they are probably still expecting more food, and it will be a while before they lose focus.

One of these fish came up for my fly and I missed it. But instead of returning to the bottom as most fish do, this one swam round in circles on the surface. It quickly dawned on me that the fish had actually purposefully tried to 'drown' the fly before it flew off and was searching for it. It was clear then that if I quickly put the fly back the fish was mine. And so it happened, and so I wondered how many missed-takes are actually splashers. In this case it was quite obvious, but if you cant see the fish it's not that clear. To be sure in future that if I miss a take, I am going to get the fly back in the same spot as quickly as possible.

Using a tenkara rod makes this quite easy, and I was please to read the other day that tenkara has been embraced by some of the 'big hitters' in the USA, like Ralph & Lisa Cutter, Ed Egle and none other than 'Mr. Small Stream USA' John Gierach. Ralph wrote “ I can’t imagine ever approaching a small stream with conventional fly gear again.” From Ed Engle said “I’d sometimes giggle out loud at the long reach I had and the beautiful drifts I was getting in normally difficult pocket water.”

Best Regards
Craig

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