The Alternative Angler – Occasional Fly Fisherman

Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the satirical side of fishing life and grab a laugh along the way as well. So here’s a regular column from Kevin Perkins to remind us that life is for laughing at, or taking the p*** out of, whenever we can.

The Occasional Fly Fisherman

I scan through all the ads first, looking for bargains, then the articles to see if I can gleam some useful nuggets of information, and finally, I look through the letters page, because usually the writers are engaged in an on-going discussion, or debate which isn’t always easy to pick up on.

Having done all that, I sat back and started to think about some of the things I had seen, which to a ‘returnee’ like me posed more questions than they had answered. The debate about ‘fly only’ versus ‘any method’ rumbles on, along with more and more trout fisheries being turned into coarse fishing ‘commercials’. All in all a lot of hand wringing and head shaking appears to be going on in the world of the trout fisher.

But is all gloom and doom? Possibly if the trout/fly fishing establishment continue to be inward looking and insist on ring fencing themselves against the rest of the fishing community, then there is a chance that they might just distance themselves far enough away as to be unattractive to newcomers.

With regard to the fly only/any method, to an outsider like me, it seems that the distinctions between disciplines get very blurred at times. It is perfectly acceptable to fly fish with a bait that is an exact copy of a trout pellet, but it is not OK to employ a coarse rod and reel using a bubble float and a real pellet, or indeed an imitation of, to try and tempt a passing trout. So it appears that whilst the bait itself doesn’t have to suffer too much scrutiny, the method of delivery is all-important.

As for myself, I am one of those individuals who enjoy spinning and lure fishing. Whilst my usual venues are weir pools using quite modest sized Mepps spinners and tiny plugs, most of which are more than passable imitations of fish fry, I am not allowed to do so on ‘fly only’ water under pain of death, or worse. Yet some of the ‘lures’ I see being flung into the water attached to fly lines are exact imitations of……..what, exactly? The size and colouration of some of these creations probably terrify more trout than they tempt, but it’s ‘fly fishing’ so that’s perfectly all right then. Coarse anglers bemoan the phenomenon that is the recent arrival of the ‘barbel police’ with their rafts of rules, regulations and traditions, but the ‘trout police’ preceded that particular band of enforcers by many years.

So how about some blue sky thinking for the future. What about experimenting by making a few trout fishing venues ‘artificial only’ where as long as your fly/lure/spinner/plug didn’t exceed, say 60mm in length, (some of the Vivas I’ve seen will need a trip to the barbers) it doesn’t matter how you fish there, fly or spinning would be perfectly acceptable.

If trout waters are being turned over to become commercial coarse fisheries, that is due to the growing need amongst coarse fishermen for this type of ‘instant fish’ venue, whilst trout anglers are obviously under utilising these venues. Much in the same way that not too many years back, myriads of ponds and puddles where stuffed with trout in an effort to entice ‘stockie bashers’ and ‘limit louts’ into the trout fishing fraternity. Well that may not have been the intention, but it tended to be the reality.

If coarse fishermen are falling over themselves to fish commercial ponds and pools, doesn’t that present trout fishermen with an ideal opportunity to try their luck on the now deserted riverbanks? A cash incentive offered to the controlling club, by way of additional members, a small injection of stock fish, and away you go, fishing on moving water, imagine the novelty!

And for some really out of the box thinking, why don’t the fly fishing aficionados take their imitation pellets and give them a flick round the commercial pools with a view to trying to hook a carp of two? Some sport to be had there on a fly rod, I shouldn’t wonder. Then again, more and more anglers have taken to using fly equipment to tempt pike, but this is pike anglers using fly gear, not fly fishermen trying pike for a change.

Perhaps somewhere it is written in tablets of stone that fly=trout, trout=fly, and that trying to add some diversity, and maybe even attract a wider audience, is going to dilute or even tarnish, rather than enhance, the fly fishing/trout fishing experience.