After meeting at the last fish-in I have remained firm friends with several members of the mailing list and when possible try and organise the odd not-too-serious session with some of the lads to keep in touch.
With this in mind, when one of the regular mailing list contributors ‘Thomo’, alias Simon Thompson, contacted me and suggested that a bit of spotty bashing (that’s trout fishing to the uninitiated) would be a good idea I readily agreed. Despite being a Manchester United fan and so obviously a little deranged Thomo seemed like a decent kind of guy so I decided to leave the day, time and venue up to him.
‘No problem mate, I know of a cracking little trout fishery up my neck of the woods’ (100 mile round trip for me but never mind eh, Thomo!)
We pulled into the lake car park at around 5.00pm after a hard days work and at once I was slightly concerned to see that the car park contained a range of brand new four-wheel drive vehicles with several brass ‘Orvis’ rod tubes inthe rear of each. I was also put on edge by the fact that I was carrying a little Shakespeare rod, worth considerably less than one of the tubes in the other cars. Never mind I thought, my natural ability will see me through………hmmm! 
We went to pay at the owners house, a rather large building straight from ‘To the manor born’ and the owner took one look at Thomo and I and said we could fish for the rest of the day at a reduced rate, and take a couple of fish each – did he know something we didn’t?
A quick look around the lake proved it to be unquestionably the most scenic day ticket venue I had ever fished, and I was already on a winner as the chap in the ticket office had given me my change twice!
We arrived in a small overgrown area where one or two big rainbows andbrownies could be clearly seen and decided to make a start.
‘What are you using?’ asks Thomo.
‘I’m not sure,’ I reply. ‘One of these little orange buzzers I think, you can have one if you want I’ve got two of them’.
‘Cheers’, says Thomo, pilfering the fly in a blur.
As I crept into position on my hands and knees I heard a load CRACK.
‘Err, you know you said you only had two of those buzzers, well you now only have one’. Smiled Thomo.
‘What should I try now’? Asks Thomo, looking into his fly box, ‘Do you thinkany these will be OK?’
Well as the fishery rules stated no lures or hooks above a size 10 are allowed I didn’t manage to spot anything suitable in amongst his tarpon and barracuda lures. In fact it just looked like he had just opened an aviary as huge fluorescent feathers came billowing out of his case like escaping budgerigars.
‘Here, help yourself to anything in here’ I said foolishly offering him my prized fly box . ‘Ta mate’ he giggled running off with most of my collection.
Well, for the next thirty minutes I had real difficulty in fishing as the constant stream of abuse could be heard drifting over the lake as Thomo wrapped, and lost, a succession of flies into the abundant undergrowth. Infact I was beginning to thing that ‘B*****d bulrush’ and ‘Ferkin willows’ were patterns of fly.
As I was fishing at the end of a small wooden pier with no surrounding undergrowth I shouted across for Thomo to join me. Besides, I was getting increasingly worried that Mr Rotavator, as I had already christened him was rapidly turning a lush undergrowth into a barren landscape. With an arm motion resembling a demented Edward Scissorhands all manner of undergrowth was rapidly being scythed down. Once he was safely out of harms way (how wrong can you be) he started to whip the surface at our feet into a frenzy until I felt a sharp pain in my right thumb.
‘Sorry pal’! Shouts the Rotavator, rushing across to pull a size 8 pheasant-tailed nymph (one of mine that he had nicked) out of my now throbbing hand.
To make matters worse it now starts raining, that constant soul-destroying drizzle that soaks everything. Just at that point a little old chap comes walking up just as the Rotavator is telling me what a head case Dermot is (another demented Mailing List member).
He tells us that like us, he hasn’t had a pull all day (I should think not at his age) but a couple of ladies fishing on the other side have taken a few nice fish on dry flies. I told him it was all down to pheromones and suggested to Thomo that we go and rub our tackle against them. The littleold chap didn’t seem to impressed by this and wandered off shaking his head.
As soon as he had gone we started searching our boxes, well my box for dry flies, (well we didn’t want to be seen copying the girlies). Mr Rotavator, putting on something resembling a big grey sparrow, and me a buzzer with a’dry fly’ top (I think its called an emerger of some kind). Now there are two versions as to what happened on my next cast.
a) Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a small ripple on the surface, I cast with unerring accuracy my emerger right on its nose and tightened into the fish as it delicately slurped down my offering which perfectly matchedto the emerging buzzers……or
b) Cast out as far as I could but decided I couldn’t see my fly and stripped it in to try again with a bigger one only to have something snatch it on the start of the retrieve.
Anyway – fish on, and despite the Rotavator letting his floating line drift over mine I managed to get my prize to the bank and Thomo safely netted it at the twenty-third attempt.
As it turned out we had no more action although we did both lower a moth and a grasshopper on the noses of two large rainbows which turned out to be grass carp – obviously they ignored us. I suppose the final insult came as the Rotavator and I walked off the lake totally p**s wet through and the owner decided to stock the lake with loads of huge rainbows right in front of our noses (I suppose some of the more unkind readers would say anywhere on the lake would be under my nose!). He had a huge grin on his face and I’m sure he waited till we had finished before he did it! As we walked back to the car Thomo piped up.
‘My girlfriend bought me this fly rod at Christmas just before she dumped me.When I get in I’m gonna phone her, tell her she’s still a bitch and that this rod is effin’ crap’.
We both collapsed into laughter, and headed for the boozer.
I actually wasn’t going to write this piece to save Thomo’s blushes but this morning when I came to look at the pictures we had took on the digital camera it seemed none of the photo’s Thomo took of me with my fish worked………….strange that eh, mate! Still I managed to take one of ‘Mr Rotavator’ just before we packed in, with virgin fly rod, soaked but not dispirited.
