A Sporting Start to the New Season
The trout fishing season opened on 15th March on the rivers for brown trout and I always get this little frisson of excitement and anticipation even though I have been fishing for rainbows at various waters right through the winter months.
Like many fly anglers, I seriously began to fish for them during the coarse closed season. My club in those days, Hayfield A.C. in the Peak District, introduced trout fishing for the many members who clamoured to fish all the year round. My interest in fly fishing developed from there and I’ve been addicted for more years than I can remember. I can still remember catching brand new “stockie” on an Iron Blue Dun dry fly all those years ago. It gave me perhaps an unfounded belief in this particular fly and I always have some in my box. Looking back at my records, I’ve caught fish with Iron Blue Duns on many occasions over the years including a brace over five pounds on consecutive casts three Septembers ago.
My present club, Colne Water A.C. imposes a short close season on its still waters from the end of December until 15th March and, if it does nothing more, the closure fuels the excitement and the imagination and it’s surprising how much you can miss a favourite water when deprived of it for ten weeks; so much of the pleasure of angling is in the mind as a mixture of keen anticipation and fond memory……like a good woman!
One of the qualities about angling is that you can elect for quiet and isolation and find a water that is a little out of the way, where tranquillity is assured. On other occasions you can opt for a busier venue and share in the banter and gossip. Mostly, I prefer to fish in quiet locations. There’s nothing worse than being the unwilling third party to lengthy discussions between two mates who are fifty metres apart. Listening to their boring descriptions of last night’s television does not enhance my day.
Last week I wrote about a visit to Barnsfold Water in Lancashire. This is a busy fishery with a constant stream of anglers all year round. Fortunately it is big enough to accommodate every one and allows plenty of elbow room. Frank Casson, the owner, is usually round and about and is a useful fund of information about conditions, flies, fish locations and Mick in the tackle shop is helpful and pleasant.
The anglers who frequent the fishery are particularly friendly, too. Everyone exchanges greetings and will briefly report on their fishing to new arrivals. I fished along the roadway end for a couple of hours and the next angler along towards the fishing lodge was doing pretty well. He caught seven of eight fish to my one during this period. About two o’clock he decided he’d had enough and he packed his tackle and left the bank.
I gradually worked my way into his swim and, as I was retrieving after my first cast, I was aware that he had returned to the bank and was standing next to me. For a brief second I thought I had committed some breach of angling etiquette and that he had come back to remonstrate with me.
Nothing of the kind. He had witnessed me move into his previous swim and he came back from the car park to tell me how he had been fishing it so successfully, that is, depth, retrieve rate and pattern used. Not only that he gave me the fly he had used to such deadly effect, a fly he had tied himself that looked like a long thin zonker in olive and with eyes like a booby. He wished me well and off he went.
The story has a happy ending, too. A big silvery rainbow took the fly first cast on the drop before I could start the retrieve that he suggested, a faster than usual figure of eight. Three more followed in the next half hour before the pattern lost its magic or, to be truthful, the water became too disturbed, for all his fish and mine were being hooked in a little triangle of water where the wind blew the waves into the angle of two banks.
What a remarkable gesture from a very sporting angler. Most fishermen are helpful but this was over and above the call of piscatorial duty and really made my day.
Tight Lines!
Eddie Caldwell
