When you have problems hitting 100 metres with 175 grams of lead, flicking a fly into the sea to catch a fish should not appeal to you… When Francis sent me a dozen wild works of art, I felt duty bound to give them a decent trial. His Kenyan flies come with weed guards and include shrimps and crab patterns!
Saltwater fly reels are manufactured from expensive alloys that can tackle big game fish like barracuda (ahem!) or cheaper graphite that has the benefit of not corroding in the salt environment. You can spend big money on saltwater reels but this avowed cheapskate selected a very old and distinctly freshwater fly reel, silencing its protests with a promise of soapy water and an oily bath… Living close to the Moy, the reel had salmon backing on it and a sinking line, 7 WF, already in place. Our American cousins recommend heavier lines but this fly fishing differs from stalking wild brown trout, in that you can thunder about a bit and it even helps. Right, ideal for me then! Any weight forward line is an advantage in saltwater flyfishing.
In deference to Francis’s superb flies, the one investment I made was in a fluorocarbon leader, which is invisible in water. The aficionados advocate tapering the monofilament from 30 lbs down to your final strength in steps to allow the fly turn over but hell, these are big wet heavy flies. I risked a single length of 8 lb line… For any fly to work, the fish has to be able to see it. If that seems like stating the ridiculously obvious, think about a storm beach in Mayo in the autumn, all that crashing surf, spume and sand, and ask how any fish will espy your fly. Having thought it through, I headed back to Rathlacken… again! You can wade out safely off this beach and/or scramble down towards Benwee Head along the flagstone slabs and access relatively calm water well past the last breaker in any inrushing tide.
I know it well, know where and what types of the fish lie there, and the eastern small cove is usually deserted. Besides which, fly-fishing on Keel Strand would have made me look too much like King Canute fighting the waves and any locals watching me would have had a call in for the “men in white coats” to come and collect me! I stitched a small crab fly on the end of two metres of fluorocarbon onto the sinking line. The weather was near windless; with only the breakers creating their own wave top flurries. Now bear in mind I am out of practice… Dipping the fly to wet it thoroughly and get it nice and heavy, I immediately cocked it up. As you strip line off the reel on each ‘false’ cast, don’t drop the damn stuff into the onrushing surf! A few exasperated minutes later, cursing my rustiness, it dawned on me that the best strategy was to wade out, chest waders a big advantage here, and cast lengthways into the water tables lying between the breakers. The waves were big and pounding, and going beyond waist high was suicide. The water was not shedding its sand either and I felt that the fly was probably invisible – it didn’t help that it was sandy coloured!
The poor rod wasn’t used to this! No fish but then another hit, on the same draw. Too large a hook? Too small a fish? Probably both, but it proved the fly worked. I wanted to try the V-worm fly but that double tap encouraged me to stick with the olive shrimp. Overall it was fun, worth trying again and I will have reddish green crab flies to try out, so thanks Francis, and hurry up man! If you want to try his flies, I will supply a few to anyone at cost, on a first come basis. You can email me at kieran.hanrahan@sea-angling-ireland.org for details on how to arrange this… |
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