Walking and Casting in the Park

Wild Rye brown trout 6lbs 8 oz - 26 May 2014

With due apology to the lyricists of 'Eliza Doolittle' and geographic pedants, whilst I was away "in Spain the rain fell mainly upon the plain" of York.  However, since my return it has scarcely stopped falling: by the end of May the rain gauge told me that we'd accumulated a remarkable 3"/78mm of the stuff.  The average is 2"/54mm falling on 14 days of the month.  This year's effort has exceeded both scores by 50%, which has had two consequences.  First, the length of the grass in my garden is up 150%; and second, my prime-time trout fishing is down 75%.   I've only been out on the stunningly beautiful  River Rye twice in the whole month, which is a personal worst record.  On the other hand I managed to catch some very big trout, including this fat monster.  With all the salmon fishing I'm a bit out of practice in the subtleties of casting back-handed round a willow tree to reach a lie overhung by cow parsley and dock leaves, but they don't call it 'Duffers' Fortnight' for nothing.

Bolton Hall in good Yorkshire May weather
8.5C drizzle and mist

With all the rain and cold; the Ure running at a good level; and reports of people taking springers on the beats above and below, I just couldn't resist another foray to the Bolton Hall beat to follow the day I described in The Joys of Spring.  The forecast said it would rain hard the night before and it did.  It was still trying to rain the next morning when I arrived in the Park: drear was a suitable adjective. Wading would be a blessed relief as the water was at least 3C warmer than the air, and with GoreTex top and bottom only my nose might feel the cold.

The Lord's Pool
+16" and rising, water 11.5C

Despite the temptations of seeking shelter in the West Wood upper half of the beat, I was determined to explore the pools and runs adjacent to the Park.  The river was well up, heavily coloured and carrying some mud.  Fortunately at this time of year the length of the grass in the pastures and density of the barley crop both hold the soil and slow the run-off.  Whilst from above it didn't look great, a quick check of the underwater visibility with the camera gave grounds for greater optimism.  Nevertheless the conditions rated a full 11 on the MCX Scoring System so the obvious choice was a Cascade Conehead tube.  However, as the beat is generally quite shallow I forebore adding a sink tip.

Lord's Bridge
Suitably eccentric

To burn off some of my excess enthusiasm before taking the lengthy walk to the top of the section, I decided to fish the pool opposite the Hall, with Tom's new hut overlooking.  At this level it comprises almost 400 metres of fishable water.  The photo above was taken from the head towards the Lord's bridge in the distance. Three casts later I had a strong take as the fly passed through the centre-line, but after a few seconds the fish was gone (the story of my week in a single phrase!).  I also discovered that the margins were full of ravenous trout, so it was essential to re-cast before the line reached the full dangle, or else waste time unhooking them.

With enthusiasm duly suppressed I took the arty photo of the eccentric Lord's Bridge and set off upstream.  As I did so the reason for the bridge's slope became apparent.  Throughout this section the right bank is formed by a post-glacial moraine, whereas the left bank is artificially created and reinforced along much of its length by embedded limestone walling.  The bridge was built in 1733, but at some point in the 20th Century someone had got loose with a drag bucket digger (a smaller version of those crane-like machines used to mine open-cast coal) and re-shaped the river, taking out the untidy bends and building up the left bank to protect the Park pastures from flooding. This sort of thing was all the rage after the Great War when maximizing agricultural production was a national mission.  Of course it's in the nature of agricultural policies that they go through a cycle of implementation followed by reversal.  In the 1960s the Ministry of Agriculture paid farmers to rip out hedges: now they're paying them to replant.  Perhaps they could now be persuaded to give Lord Bolton a subsidy for making the river untidy again, ideally by dropping some large rocks into the flow to create some more salmon lies.  Here's hoping.

Top of the Park section looking upstream to
West Wood

The man made embankment offered good going until I reached the point where I could no longer resist the urge to fish, even if this meant foregoing the joys of the run down from West Wood.

Looking downstream

And here's the reason why a stopped.  I'd just walked past 300 metres of river that literally screamed 'salmon!' at the top of its voice.  The challenge lay in the fact that at +18" it could potentially hold fish across its entire breadth.  The features that might attract, hold and concentrate running fish (and they would be moving at this height) were not easy to spot, possibly because the drag bucket operator had done a good job of smoothing the bottom and pulling out the boulders.  Covering the full width from the bank was a lesser challenge provided that I didn't try to cast too square.  Wading was not on.

Further down

The further down you went, the better it got, bending progressively to the left under a series of large ash trees.  On the way down I took and released two respectable sea trout before encountering a knowledgeable local who told me that last week someone had caught a substantial fish from where I was casting.  They're always here last week, which makes we wonder where they'll be next week, when this week has in its turn become last week.........if you get my meaning.

And round the corner - Ash Tree

The corner pool was an obvious fish holder of semi-magnetic attraction, which reaches fever pitch by the large rock set in the bank below the biggest tree.  Unfortunately the combined effects of my photography and the gloomy day prevent these pictures doing justice to the sublime prettiness of the surroundings.  This really is a wonderful place to fish, even if you aren't catching.

You enter the water about half way down to fish out the stretch to the tail.

Down to the tail
Note the beck on the right

The last 150-200 metres is nice easy wading and fishing until the flow runs out of steam and depth.  The running line and lies are towards the far bank.  In addition, any fish running up this stretch will rapidly detect the smell of the beck tumbling in from the right and pause to resolve the information.  A salmon can detect smells in water at parts per billion or more - that equates to one pub measure of whisky in 25 tons of water - and a large part of its brain is devoted to processing smell data.  It survives by being cautious, so even small changes in the smell environment will create a brief halt and a potentially catchable fish.

By now I had been fishing this stretch for almost 2 hours and was in serious need of a break.  Furthermore the water was starting to clear, so a change of fly was in order.  Even after 3 days on the Dee before Easter I am still a long way from 'casting fit' at this early stage of the season, and at my age there are distinct limits to what I can demand of a very battered and unreliable  back.  Nevertheless the Crunchie bar offered the fastest sugar hit outside Jamaica and had me up on my feet again inside 10 minutes to repeat the fishing of this stretch.

Upper Park

The next pool below comprises two long pools separated by a large willow bush, around which wading would be foolhardy in all but the lowest water.  The near side is deep and the boulders plentiful, round, smooth and slippery, so at around +15" I was unwilling to chance a swim (even at +6" the wading is awkward).  Sometimes you just have to accept that you cannot cover all the water in front of you.  Although this pool would fish well from the right bank, there's nowhere to cross at this height; you can't get it by car; and the walk down, over and back from the Lord's Bridge is about a mile.

By now the clock was running down towards 4pm when I needed to be on the road North to Kelso and the Tweed to fish the beautiful Rutherford beat in the morning (which will be the subject of the next post).  This gave me just enough time to fish part of the Lower Park pool before going into the Houdini routine of removing my waders.  The sun was trying to come out; the water was clearing; and hope sprang as eternal as ever (it always does with me!), but on this occasion without fulfillment.  Nonetheless it had been a marvelous day spent exploring a new and exciting bit of water, which I eagerly anticipate fishing later in the season.

So, apart from the beauty of the surroundings, what did I take from the day?

• When trying for sparse spring fish you have to be realistic about your prospects.  On the Ure, at best the odds are about 10% of those prevailing in September and October, and probably lower still when the water allows them to run as freely as it did on this day.
• When you're casting off the bank don't be too ambitious.  If you go too square, you'll catch the grass.  If you try too hard for oblique distance the over-rotation of your body will cause your D-loop to catch the cow parsley.  Take it easy and concentrate on fishing most of the water really well, which is far more productive than covering all of it badly.
• A fast action tip-biased rod isn't a good choice for this sort of fishing because you just can't load it properly in a partial roll cast.  I was trying out a 13' 8" Vision Cult, which most unusually is described as "slow, through action".  While such terms might be a turn-off for more macho anglers, I found the Cult ideal for this sort of work, albeit it's a mite longer than this water really demands.  It's a nice rod - very confidence building and suitable for a beginner because you can feel everything happening - but it has the most ridiculous and bizarre reel seat I've ever encountered, and what's worse, it's up-locking and has no secondary lock nut! Forget the natty wood and give me a plain, simple down-locking Alps with a Teflon thread and a locking washer.
• A smaller river like this limits your casting room and style because there's no point wading nearly half way across to make room for the D-loop.  After all, it's the forward cast that catches the fish, not the backward.  To overcome the effects of a constrained D-loop use a short headed line (mine was a Rio Scandi) and go up one line weight (or even two) in order to get a fuller and more efficient loading of the rod. 

The next post describing the glories of the Tweed will follow shortly provided the weather doesn't improve dramatically to get me out on the Rye.  In the interim I wish you tight lines on both salmon and trout.

The Joys of Spring

Spring in the Dales - West Wood 2, Bolton Hall Beat, River Ure, 15th May 2014

It has been my extraordinary good fortune to spend much of the first half of May in warm sunny places with my art historian wife whilst the rain at home lifted the rivers and pulled spring fish up from the Humber.  This really was the best of both worlds.

Agrigento
The view from dinner

By day I was educated in the beauties of the Grecian civilisation in Sicily in the 5th Century BC and then the Moors in Spanish Andalucia in the 10th Century AD.  Come the evening and over the most welcome beer (a truly international concept) my phone would tell me how the river was rising and who was catching what and where.  But with views like this even I was not going to be studying the Environment Agency's App at dinner!

Granada
The Alhambra

By the end of the week in Andalucia it was clear that the Ure had been up high enough and long enough to bring the first flight of springers all the way up to Thoresby, which is 73 miles from the salt as the river flows.  Facebook and personal e-mails told me all - one rod was averaging a fish per day, and another at Swinithwaite had taken a silver 20 pounder.  It was time to fold the culture, head home and get into the water.





By sheer chance I had already booked a beat on the 15th to take a novice friend onto the Ure. After 2 sessions of instruction with Alan Maughan it was time to let Gordon have a fly on the end and put it into the water for the first time.  In the event this was the 4th day after the river had peaked at + 1.5m at the end of a week of high water, so there were good grounds for optimism.  Yes, the water was slightly lower than the optimum, but any fish in the pools would have arrived in the previous 4-5 days and would be respectably alert.  The odds are always against you in the spring, but this would be as good as it might be,

West Wood 1 looking upstream

We were on the Bolton Hall beat, which comprises 3 miles of double bank fishing, at this time of year allocated for 2 rods.  There are about a dozen pools, of which 6 are full-sized classics. It's not as open as Thoresby, directly above, on which I've posted at length before, but it's a much better option for a novice as there are substantial areas where the fish are within 10 yards of the wading line.  The picture shows an example: 80% of the fish in this pool are close to the left bank (right in the photo).  Although it's better fished technically from the other side with a 25 yard cast, a novice on the left is in with an excellent chance with just 10-15 yards.

The conditions may not have been perfect for salmon but they were fabulous in any other context.  The water was  at +8", clear and a comfortable 10C.  Above water we had sunshine and light cloud, a gentle westerly breeze and a temperature around 18C.  On the MCX Scale this scored around 6, so this was a time for smaller flies and plain leaders.  I began with a #12 Blue Charm, my favourite clear water fly, but immediately encountered two significant problems. First, the previous week's high water had deprived the resident trout of their ration of hatching olives, so at the first sign of a hatch they were up for anything that even remotely resembled a nymph.  We fished through 2 lovely hatches of March Brown and Medium Dark, during which any salmon wouldn't have got a look at the fly amidst the melee of brown trout.  The second problem was a pleasurable extension of the first, in that the resident browns had been joined by plenty of sea trout in every size from 8 ounces to 8 pounds.  At one point I did weaken and fish directly to a large sea trout lying just off the prominent oak tree on the left of the photo at the top of the post: he took and I missed (well, my excuse is that no strike is quick at 28 yards).  The only way to stop being bothered to death was to go up a couple of sizes to #8, which reduced the takes by 80% or so.

Having fished the morning on the top of the beat in the sheltered pools at West Wood, we moved down to the smart new hut at Lord's Bridge for lunch.  It's not quite finished so we sat on the bank to enjoy lunch, the surroundings and the sunshine.  Anyone watching from the far bank would have seen two elderly gentlemen sharing a picnic whilst swigging wine directly from the bottle (Gordon had forgotten the glasses).  Despite the absence of civilisation it still tasted very good.  That said, we didn't over indulge, which deprives me of an excuse for missing a good take on the first cast after lunch.

Above Lord's Bridge

The bottom of the beat is open and sweeping, with a series of long pools from the end of West Wood down to the bridge marking the boundary.  This one is fishable for most of the 300 yards from the neck down to the bridge, with good depth and lies across much of its width.  The running line is almost central, but the entire pool proclaims 'fish'.  With +12" on the gauge in September and October this could be great fun.

Park

The next pool up is best fished from the right bank, not least because the wading on the left is deep and awkward in places.  However, in any sort of water wading across the neck is not a good option, so you have to walk down, over the bridge and back up.  Nevertheless a novice has viable fishing for the top third from the left and over half from the right.  A 25 yard cast covers 90% of the fish.  This photo is taken from where I missed the after lunch take, about half way round to the dangle, with no more than 20 yards of line out.

Although we failed to land a fish we had a great day out.  Gordon has his first day's salmon fishing whilst I thoroughly enjoyed guiding him and exploring a new beat.  There are no certainties in spring fishing but on such a day the pleasures are immense.  Now I shall have to wait for some more water to bring up the next flight of runners, but in between there are plenty of trout to amuse me on the Rye.

Sinking Feeling

Through the extraordinary generosity of Michael at AM Angling I took two sinking shooting heads to test on the Dee last week.  Venturing into the submarine world of sinking lines was a new experience for me, as followers of Just One Week will have spotted that I've got by until now by adding a variety of sinking polyleaders or tips to floating lines.  Without the challenges of especially deep or heavy water I hadn't felt the need to acquire a sinking line.  However, with the Dee running at +18", it was an ideal opportunity to do some learning and testing.  You will note the order of those words: this post is as much about me learning how to get the best out of a sinking line as it is an evaluation of the two lines that Michael had kindly provided.

The Contenders

Guideline is the ubiquitous brand in sinking shooting heads and possibly the market leader.  You don't achieve that status with bad products, so the PT Scandi would provide a reliable reference baseline for the evaluation.

When you take it out of the box for the first time you are immediately aware of the design and production quality.  It just looks right.  There are several features that are clearly born of long experience and intended to make life easy, and these imbue a certain confidence from the outset.

Loop introduced their Graduated Density lines last year, when I did an evaluation of the Low-Float, a thoroughly good piece of kit, but markedly different from the Rio AFS.  The GDC concept really applies to the sinking lines, in that the transition from S1 to S2 is spread over 5 feet rather than just a couple of inches as was previously the case with many multi-rate sinking lines.  The theory is that this causes the line to extend in a single continuum rather than a series of steps.  The physics is certainly true, but I didn't look underwater on this test to verify the effect.

When I first took the line out of the box my reaction was entirely different to the Guideline, in that I was irrationally irked by the fact the GDC is all one colour - olive green - with no simple indication of which end is which once you've removed the tags.  This required quick action with a permanent black marker pen - you can't trust to memory at my age.

Spot the difference!
Which end is which?

You can see the difference here.  Perhaps I'm idle and old, but it's nice to be able to find the right end of a shooting head without having to think too hard.  Another advantage of the Guideline's colour scheme is that even I can see the orange end coming during the retrieve and coordinate its arrival with the management of the running line.

You will also note the use of handy garden plant ties to secure the coils: simple and very effective.

On the Lawn

Profile at 10 feet

The next step was to lay the 2 lines out on the lawn to compare their profiles.  Because the first section of the Guideline is Intermediate it is correspondingly thicker than the Loop at S1, which is visible here.

Profile at 25 feet

However, as you progress onwards through 20 feet to 25, where the Guideline transitions into S2, you'l note that it is still (counter-intuitively) fractionally thicker than the Loop at S1 (normally faster sinking lines are thinner).  I didn't use a micrometer, just eye and image zooming, but started to form the view that Loop had managed something a bit technically novel here.

Profile at 35 feet

At 35 feet you are approaching the end of the Loop: the Guideline is 4 feet longer.  At this point the Loop is S2 and the Guideline is S3.  Again, and equally counter-intuitively, the diameters are similar.






In sum, the Guideline follows an entirely predictable taper pattern, with each stage clearly visible.  There's something different about the Loop.  After a bit of head scratching and reviewing of the Low Float pictures, I concluded that Loop might have done something remarkable.  Instead of achieving higher density by reducing the line's diameter, they appear to have achieved the effect by changing the density of the material.  I may be wrong, but the consequences of this innovation (if it be so) will become apparent shortly.

On the River

Upper Kirk at +18"

The main part of the evaluation took place on the Upper Kirk pool which is usefully concealed from public view.  On Waterside,with a road running along its entire length, you tend to attract spectators, including those with cameras, liable to record your embarrassing efforts whilst learning the intricacies of working with sinking lines.  I had some difficulty persuading the charming tourist from Nigeria with a £2000 Canon EOS 5 and a 300mm lens that I really wasn't a good examplar of Scottish salmon fishing technique.

Beyond privacy, Upper Kirk had everything - cold water, weight of flow, depth and breadth. From the left bank you are working to maximum range from thigh deep wading; from the right you're managing narrow angles from a limited roll-casting space off the grass.  The wind was around 15 mph downstream oblique, rising to 20 mph later in the day, turbulent and gusty.  As a result the majority of the casts were waterborne anchor: Single Spey was out of the question on safety grounds.

The rod was a Loop Cross S1 14' #9.  The running line was a well worn Rio standard.  At the business end I employed a 5' slow sink polyleader (equivalent to S2), 7' of fluorocarbon, and a choice of 1" weighted tubes and #6 doubles.

When reading what comes next, please bear in mind that my name is not Alan Maughan and that I'm not a great caster.

Guideline

The Guideline was first up to establish the baseline.  As you might expect, the Guideline does exactly 'what it says on the tin', although some helpful hints on the box would have been handy during the first 10-15 minutes of getting the hang of its behaviour.

Like all heavy sinking objects it goes out like a rocket; slices through the wind and turbulence; and picks tubes up out of the water with ease.  The turnover is good.  Above all, it's very forgiving of limitations in casting.  If it can get out there, it will.  The arrival may not be pretty, but the Guideline will have done everything in its power to help.

It's nice to fish with and for the first time I could appreciate the virtue of a sinking line cutting down through the speed and turbulence of the surface flow into the smoother water below. Contact with the fly was direct and continuous.  The brightly coloured Intermediate section helped both visual management and retrieval.

Perversely, that otherwise most useful and helpful orange Intermediate section was the source of my one gripe with this otherwise excellent line.  I was surprised by the effort needed to extract this comparatively short head into the back cast.  There were occasions, especially if the dangle was in slower water, when getting it out was a real chore.  The Intermediate bit just seemed to hug the water in a way that real sinkers do not (based on experience with my old Loop Multi-Tip line which has very long front sections).  Even employing my newly learned Modern Spey lift and swing technique, this limitation got to be very boring after the first half hour, especially with my age and dodgy back.  It was most reluctant to respond to a Snake Roll, so I didn't invest much time in trying to apply that approach to the problem.  Of course, 'rolling up' made life much easier, but that's a bit of a chore and yet more wasted fishing time added to that expended on stripping in the running line.

Perhaps I may have missed something; more probably my technique is rubbish and slick floating lines have made me a softie, but for me the limitation of the back cast took away too much of the joy of the Guideline's excellent delivery.

Loop

When I stopped to change the lines over, my morale was not great.  I was a mite tired, a little cold (the water was at 6.5C) and filled with trepidation at the prospect of another 3 hours of demanding back casts.  I was irritated by Loop's all green line.  After a short break; a stiff self-lecture to get a grip and man-up; and some morale boosting chocolate (my weakness), I re-entered the water.

And so,  I fed out the line, rolled it around into a shallow angle and stripped out some running line whilst waiting for it to reach the dangle.  Then lift the rod, push the bottom hand under and out and turn the torso in a movement calibrated an honed and hardened over the previous 3 hours.  Swish! An all-green 36 foot snake with a black blob on its tail shot past me heading directly into the wind.  Splash!  It landed straight upstream, but I failed to observe the turnover.  After a certain amount of self-cursing, thrashing (aka roll casting) and sorting out, I got the snake back to the dangle.  Try again with a bit less effort.  This led to the anchor being about 15 feet upwind.  Unashamedly mixing my animal metaphors, the green snake came out of the water like a jack rabbit set to turbo: certainly more Green Mamba than Green Python.

Once I'd got the hang of the back cast the forward bit was easy.  Like all sinkers the GDC is fundamentally heavy and makes short work of difficult winds.  If it had been more across or frontal I would have increased the length and weight of the polyleader and shortened the fluorocarbon.  The turnover was good and the design continuity with the Low Float I use in windy conditions was self-evident.  In delivery it equalled the excellent Guideline across the board. The GDC had the same directness of contact with the fly, but the near invisibility of the back end of the head was a significant bugbear.

By the end of the day's fishing I hadn't caught a fish, but I'd started to develop a real liking for the green snake and sinking line fishing, which is really surprising for someone with a lifetime aversion to snakes.

Summary

So what came out of the day:

• A sinking line is probably essential if you are going to fish big fast-flowing pools like Kirk and Waterside in spring with cold water.  After this experience I wouldn't wish to be without one for future spring fishing.
• The Guideline is an excellent product, with outstanding design features and perfect finish, that offers very good forward cast delivery.  But for whatever reason - possibly the Intermediate section or my poor technique - I found the back cast uncomfortably difficult.
• Michael of AM Angling will need a crowbar to get the Loop Green Snake out of my tackle box: it's great.  Obviously lots of Swedes agree with me, because I'm told it's in short supply.
• But if you do buy the snake, it will work best when used with a brightly coloured running line, which coincidentally is the subject of my next post.

Thanks

I close by reiterating my gratitude to Michael of AM Angling for his generous support to this evaluation, and for his help and advice in a multitude of other matters; thank you.  A company of this quality is worthy of anyone's custom, so please use the links or side-tag to pay them a visit.

Spring on the Dee

Evening view of the Dee upstream from Waterside

It's been a while since I last wrote a post, simply because I didn't have anything especially interesting to say in advance of actually doing some fishing.  Then the postponement of the day on the Tweed in March meant waiting until April and our trip to the Dee.

Of course, as usual, my anticipation rose steadily as departure day approached.  Business didn't get in the way: from hotel rooms in Arabia you can track the Braemar weather forecast, SEPA river levels and the Dee's daily catches (or not) on FishPal with the same ease as from home.  The luxury may be greater, but the dearth of a refreshing beer after working in 30 degree warmth is a serious downside.  On the other hand, it was so cold when I was fishing last spring that we had to use the microwave to defrost the lunchtime drink (microwave? that's Tweed fishing hut luxury for you).

My anticipation and excitement was tempered by a degree of trepidation.  I'd not fished on Royal Deeside before, so sought advice from Patrick who has been an annual pilgrim to this salmon Mecca for a decade and more.  Would I have to wear a tie whilst fishing? (No).  Would my Simms thermal ninja pyjamas be acceptable? (Yes, provided I didn't wear them for dinner at the hotel).  Would I have to dress for dinner (aka black tie)? (No, but at your age do check that your trousers are on and done up properly).  Will the ghillie laugh at my rubbish casting finely honed on smaller rivers? (No, he's seen far, far worse.  Anyway he likes a tip, and therefore will even laugh at your awful jokes).  

Patrick's responses moderated my concerns, although the size of the water caused me to sneak off to the Tyne for a casting lesson with Alan Maughan.  He's an excellent instructor who's put immense thought into teaching methods and effective communication.  The challenge I gave him was to sort out my Single Spey, which is the cast I've used least in the 12 years since I started with a double-handed rod.  Think about it: if you fish rivers that flow generally east into the North Sea (Findhorn, Ure, Tyne etc) and the prevailing wind is westerly, then upstream winds are abnormal.  More often than not you've got a downstream wind, which makes you a dab hand at the Double Spey and the Snake Roll (in my case usually left handed because most of my fishing is left bank).  Finally, although its 'Single' title implies a certain simplicity, the Single Spey is undoubtedly the hardest cast to do well.  To make matters worse, it has the smallest margin of error in terms of anchor placement: joy and gloom are separated by a razor blade.  You can get away with all manner of sins with a waterborne anchor, but the airborne anchor of the Single can drive you to distraction.  Thus, with the aim of getting a decade's worth of embedded bad habits out and a sound technique in, I spent several hours in the wintry Tyne focused on getting the anchor placement right.  Persistence is a virtue, and I'll go back shortly for another session to polish the delivery.  That said, for 3 days on the Dee we had strong downstream winds, culminating in a near gale on the Saturday, so the new Single only featured for about 5% of my casting effort.

Fully prepared, armed, trained and reassured I set off on the Wednesday morning, via a brief stop at John Norris to buy a new lifejacket to replace the faithful item seized and destroyed by Royal Mail when I sent it off for servicing.  I'd failed to note the change in their postal policy last autumn - CO2 cylinders, however small are now totally forbidden.  Mine showed up on scanning and was then sent under guard to Barnsley to be blown up.  They rejected all entreaties for mercy and offers to collect - boom!  Be warned: no doubt MCX is now in MI5's files as a potential postal bomber.

As it was mid-week, far too early for tourists and caravans and there was little snow on the Cairngorms, I took the route from Perth to Braemar over the Glenshee Pass.  It's amazing what the Scots will grade as an A-road, but that does give you more time to admire the stunning scenery.  And as you descend from Glenshee you observe an ever-expanding snow melt stream sparkling beside the road, hurling itself exuberantly off the mountains, liberally accumulating the oxygen essential to all life and the Dee's quality as a salmon river.  By the time I reached Dinnet and the Loch Kinnord Hotel I fully understood what had so inspired the Victorians.

Waterside Pool - sparkling in the spring sunshine
Day 1 - +18"

We were on the Waterside and Ferrar beat of the Upper Dee on the Glen Tanar Estate.  It comprises some 4 miles of double bank fishing with 14 named pools.  It is an exceptionally attractive beat owing to the variety of water and setting that every pool offers, with each posing the angler a different challenge.  It's the epitome of classic salmon fishing - the idealised vision of the tackle catalogue and the box of shortbread - with well tended banks, nice benches indicating the best lies, and huts with pot-bellied stoves.  I loved it.

Upper Kirk viewed from the wading line
The running line is up the right side

On Day 1 we had perfect water at +18", a real morale booster.  It was a frigid 6.5C, but with no obvious temperature barriers between us and Aberdeen this wouldn't stop the fish coming (if they so wished!).

Using the MCX Scoring System Upper Kirk pool where I began Day 1 scored 2 for level, 3 for speed, 3 for temperature, but only 1 for clarity.  Indeed on the gin scale the clarity scored about 70 Proof (or 37% ABV for the younger reader).  With a point knocked off for the brilliant sunshine I arrived at an aggregate of 8 points, which suggested a lightly weighted 1" black and yellow Dee tube and a 10' sink tip.  The system isn't designed to be precise, but rather to lead you to a logical and sensible choice that isn't likely to be far wrong. Indeed, about an hour later Davie the ghillie appeared and endorsed my judgement.  Over the 3 days the air temperature remained above the water's throughout, from a morning low of 7C to a tropical 16C on the afternoon of Day 1.

Upper Kirk - knee depth, mid-morning light

After years wading the burgundy shades of the Findhorn I was amazed by the clarity of the water.  Standing on the bank you could see the bottom across nearly one third of the width.  The sunlight penetration was accelerating the growth of the green weed and algae on the rocks in the shallows.

This extreme clarity caused a wobble of confidence in my choice of fly.  Having never been to Iceland or Norway to fish snow-melt fed rivers, this was beyond my experience. So too was the counter-intuitive paradox of rising air temperatures raising the river level. Nevertheless I stuck with the Dee tube for most of the first day: I'm not much convinced by frequent changes of fly, which seems to do more for the fisherman than the fish.

Waterside Pool - thigh depth

This shot gives another view of the clarity: there's at least 15'/5m of unusually good horizontal visibility in the normally opaque Window 1.  The sunlight penetration is striking.  The green/yellow tinge is caused by 2 factors.  First, water absorbs more of the red part of the spectrum, thus emphasizing the remainder.  Second, the strong green tone near the bottom is owed to the vegetable growth stimulated by the sunlight, which is not evident when viewed from above the surface.  It was this evidence that caused me to change to a smaller fly - initially a 3/4" Monkey and then to a conventional #8 double.  Lesson learned: if in doubt take the underwater photo to confirm the real sub-surface light level and visibility.

Bank Pool - Day 2 - +15"

At the top of the beat is Bank Pool, which swings to the right in a long arc of 90 degrees. The running line is near the far bank (left) and the conventional wisdom is that it is best fished from that side.  While that may be easier, it does deprive you of half the pool's length once you reach the visible cliff of its name.  Moreover, as the right side is very shallow, an easy wade to knee depth puts you within 25-30 yard casting range of the far bank, even in a blustery down and across wind.  Anyway, it's much more fun doing a full cast than a series of modified rolls off the bank into a narrow angle.  It was a different matter by Saturday, when it was blowing a full Force 5, but both right-handed Double Spey and Snake Roll kept the fly safely downwind whilst meeting 90% of the range requirement.

Duguid's Pool looking down towards Upper Kirk
Day 3 - +12"

Next down is Duguid's, where again the running line is on the left, easily approach via shallow wading from the right when allocated that side.  Located directly above the fast water leading down to Upper Kirk, Duguid's looked like a classic 'tail' pool.  Armed with appropriate optimism I fished it thoroughly - sadly without result.  Even on the running line it's not very deep, so I was using 10' of slow sink polyleader and a #8 double Cascade (also endorsed by Davie).

Upper Rhunavella looking down towards Waterside
Day 3 - +12"

You then make your way down through the three Kirks pictured above to Upper and Lower Rhunavella.  As Jones' sawmill occupies the right bank here,the Rhunavellas are fished from the left.  The photo doesn't do justice to either the speed and weight of the water, or the wind - by late morning on Day 3 standing up was becoming a more pressing challenge than the casting.  That said, the running line here converges from left of centre down into a narrow neck at the base of the large tree at the mouth of the small burn down on the left, which made it easy to cover.  Indeed, the neck is an ideal 'ambush' site for later in the season.  It's much less good for that purpose in April as you have to wait rather a long time for a fish to turn up!  None did on the Saturday.

Waterside Pool
End of fishing Day 3 - +10"

Finally you reach Waterside, which is fished from both banks and very long.  From the left it takes well over an hour to do it justice.  The running line is just to the right of the main flow in the foreground.  It's eminently reachable from the left bank provided the water is below +18".  Above that mark the wading becomes too demanding - it's much steeper and deeper on the far side than it looks.  The higher level also makes a good case for a sinking head, something with which I experimented on this trip for the first time.



Thus my Dee trip ended without a fish, which puts me in good company with lots of other people this year.  With the unusual warmth the salmon appear to have run straight through the Lower Dee (which normally fishes very well) but then came to a halt just above Banchory, to the delight of those fishing at Ballogie.  In the Upper river pickings have been very thin.  The beat above us caught one fish (a nice 20 pounder) whilst we were there, and a Swedish rod took a single fish on our beat in the previous period.  Otherwise the ghillies have been in a general state of gloom, lightened only by my dreadful jokes (thanks Davie, your laughter was good for my morale!).

Lessons

So what did I learn from the experience?

• Wading in cold water and casting in strong winds on a bigger river is tiring work.  Take regular breaks to warm up (important at my age) and rest your casting.  If you fish on relentlessly your casting will get progressively worse, deprive you of much pleasure and ultimately depress your morale.
• Unless you're a seal, don't even think of wading the right side of Kirk - it's lethal.
• Use the MCX Scoring System as a guide, but a waterproof camera provides a very useful cross-bearing on sub-surface visibility.
• Bright spring sunshine makes the green slippery stuff grow very quickly, so never go into the water without a wading stick (I never do).  It's most slippery in the shallows.
• As I noted in last year's spring post after fishing on the Ure, putting out a good line in strong winds depends on sound basic techniques, which you can only acquire through proper instruction, so take a pre-season lesson.  I'm not a good caster, but I could cover all the water required on all 3 days.
• Be realistic about your chances.  With a 5 year average around 16 fish in April between 4 rods over 20 days' fishing, in a good year your catch probability is about 25-30%, and in a bad one as low as 3-5% (i.e. like 2013 and where 2014 is headed).  So don't fuss and fiddle, forever changing flies: just keep on doing the right thing and wait for the dice to roll your way.
• There's more to fishing than just catching fish!  We had a thoroughly good week and we're already looking forward to next year, provided my wife discharges me from the secure psychiatric unit.

And Next

My next post, which will follow shortly, reports on the new kit that I tried on this expedition.  This included:

• A comparative test of Guideline Scandi and Loop GDC sinking shooting heads
• An evaluation of the new Rio Connect Core running line, with its thickened grip section

Loading Up

We're having a lovely fine end to an unusually warm winter, with sharp night frosts followed by clear skies and increasingly warm sunshine.  You can feel the onset of spring but the memories of last March's snow are still fresh enough to temper the optimism that bubbles in all anglers.  Nevertheless, when you combine the effects of the weather with a day on the Tweed at the weekend; reports of the first springers in the Ure; the approaching trip to the Dee; and good water in most places, the bubbles are pretty lively at the moment.

Let's face it, screens like these do make you feel better.  That said, it's an unusual spring run in some places, with fish running strongly and further upstream than normal.  On the other hand, every spring is different - think back a few years to the succession of cold dry springs with very low water levels and correspondingly reduced runs.  Indeed, the run nowadays is such a small proportion of the annual total, that it's perhaps unwise to proclaim patterns and deviations. 

 The simple fact is that spring fishing is even more of a lottery than the summer and autumn.  There are many fewer fish; the cold water can make them torpid and resistant to stimulation; and the fishing days are still short.  But despite - or perhaps owing to - the adverse odds, the pursuit of the perfect silver fish has an attraction all of its own.  My father and grandfather were both devotees.  Indeed my grandfather, a stern and determined Yorkshireman we addressed as "Sir", braved the spring elements annually until he suffered a stroke on the Exe in his 80s.  Sadly he fell backwards onto the bank rather than forwards into the water to be carried away in a manner he would have have far preferred to the subsequent degrading slow decline to death.

With rising morale comes the outload.  In my last post I showed off the Great Fishing Chest and with it my orderly traits (no it's conditioning not a condition).  Now the time has come to disturb that elegant order and transfer the contents to the pockets of my wading jacket and the car boxes.  We originally bought a collection of stacking polythene boxes to store the children's toys.  They've grown up into serious professionals and their most precious childhood toys are in those boxes in the loft, waiting for the next generation to wake them from their hibernation.  But there were two boxes left over that were natural candidates for fishing.

One takes wading boots, folding staff and waders.  The other takes the serious stuff, although you may be surprised by the small volume.  I removed the tube fly and polyleader boxes to give a clearer view of the reels (Koma + Skagit, CLW + GDC; Guru AFS #8, Evotec + AFS #9, Konic #7), one CLW spare spool (full length Spey line), shooting heads, tippet spools and the small tool box (another item purloined from the children).

It's a compact Aladdin's Cave: clockwise from the top right, WD40 and Vaseline; utility tools; spare shock cord; pliers, knife & Ketchum Release (sea trout); hook sharpening stone; spare wading stick ferrule; treble and double hooks (you don't want them coming open in the main box); super glue; wader studs & key; reel spares (& a Koma circlip); and the wader repair kit of Aquasure and patches.  There's everything I need to cover the reasonable worst-case scenarios I might encounter in a week's fishing.  I find it much simpler just to pack the kit and keep it in the car box for both day trips and longer excursions.  Then it's always there and you don't have to remember whether or not you've packed it.  If the boxes are in the car, you're ready to go.

Finally there's my jacket.  It's nothing special - the basic Snowbee with the minimum array of packets.  On the left side are a fly box (outside), polyleaders (intermediate, slow, fast, very fast) and tippet spool (inside).  On the right, the waterproof camera (inside), tube fly mini-box, soft tape measure, knot glue, water thermometer and priest.  In the centre, spectacles, sun glasses, forceps and scissors.

Here you see the car loaded with 3 rods (14', 13' & 12'), with the jacket folded into the tackle box at rear and the wader box in the foreground.  The landing net goes in the back seat foot-well.  You will note that my orderly traits don't extend to my car, which shows the effects of 4 months of muddy dog and boots, and has yet to undergo its end of shooting season annual clean.  It's a good thing that the bossy German Frau who lives in the dashboard can't see what's behind me.



At last!  Oh joy!  In my next post I shall be able to write about fishing.  Let's hope I don't fall in.  If all goes well and the water level is suitable.........(written on Wednesday)

But on Friday, Murphy strikes back at excessive optimism.  You will recall my vulnerability to the vagaries of meteorology from last September's posts.  Now you see it again: here is the SEPA Tweed chart on Friday, showing a wall of water making its way downstream.  My host rang at 11 this morning to tell me there was no point travelling up - the river was big, brown and rising at 4 inches per hour.

Having built up my anticipation to fever pitch, I now have the prospect of spending tomorrow in the garden, or worst of all, doing something about the inside of my car (or both).  I quite enjoy gardening, but nowhere near as much as fishing.  Moreover, I suspect that you would sooner be reading about fishing than my domestic organisation.  Looking ahead:

• I had planned to use the Tweed trip to carry out a comparative evaluation of 2 sinking shooting heads - the Guideline Scandi Power Taper 1-2-3  and the Loop GDC 2-3 - kindly supplied by Michael at AM Angling.  This will now have to wait until the Dee trip in early April.  Their headline specifications are identical, but having laid them out on the lawn and photographed with the macro lens there are visible differences in weight distribution, profile and taper that suggest that the practical test on the water will be very interesting.  Also, having not previously had a requirement for sinkers, I hope to be able to give you a view on whether they might be a useful addition to your armoury.
• At the end of March I'm having a casting coaching session with Alan Maughan (Modern Spey Casting) on the Tyne.  I remain a firm believer in the value of such sessions: eliminating bad habits and embedding good casting technique leads to more pleasurable and productive fishing, and fewer aches and pains at the end of a long day. There are few people who have given as much thought as Alan to the science of casting and its effective communication to the student. There's little point spending lots of money on good kit if you can't get the best out of it, so why not take some coaching?
• And no doubt I shall find something to write about in the interim.

If you're lucky enough to get onto the water, tight lines.

It's Here! A New Season

I've been fishing a very long time.  Incredibly, when I caught my first trout, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister - yes, that long ago.  Even after all those years I still have the same boyish enthusiasm.  My excitement greets each new season, new day and new cast, whilst being tolerated, humoured and teased by my wife and family in equal measure.  Yet after Christmas I lulled myself into believing that the new season was a long way away.  After all, we don't start on the Ure until April, even if there might be the odd springer above Redmire Falls before then.  As a result my fishing brain had lapsed into uncharacteristic hibernation, postponing all manner of tasks until the trip to the Dee in mid-April with John and Patrick came over the time-horizon.  As they say, "today's greatest labour saving device is tomorrow", and it was still 8 weeks until the Dee trip (with its attendant call on John Norris to break the journey).

Then, last week, out of the blue, a friend rang up to invite me for a day on the Tweed in early March.  Despite less than fond memories of last year's snow, freezing easterly wind and falling in, I accepted with alacrity verging on indecent haste, supported by appropriate gratitude. Once I'd got over the excitement the reality set in.  With 3 weeks to go - one of those lost to a business trip to the Gulf; the other 2 obstructed by more routine work; and a major backlog of weekend gardening - I needed to get my fishing brain back up to its normal pace and sort myself out.  As I'm an orderly person, sorting out my kit is fairly straightforward.  Rods and wading kit are all together at one end of the loft.  Everything else is in the Great Fishing Chest that lives at the top of the stairs. 

The Great Fishing Chest

I inherited this wonderful piece of furniture from my late father who had acquired it during a business trip to Denmark in the 1960s.  I have no idea what inspired him to buy it, but like me he loved things that were well made, and the GFC is beautifully constructed in rosewood.  I distinctly recall my mother's horror when the GFC was delivered: "where do you propose to put that monstrosity?"  Having grown up in a fishing family my wife has much more relaxed views on such things: anyway, the flat top provides her with a convenient parking place for things like clothes and books that go up and down stairs, and others that can't make up their mind where they wish to be.

GFC with 3 layers in view
Trout reels and flies above, salmon below

Internally it's a thing of beauty and joy, perfectly built and massively capacious with sliding shelves.  You can see the wonderful colour and grain of the rosewood.  The GFC swallows everything and permits eye-pleasing display of the contents.  Of course this wondrous order, so carefully established last November, is about to be disturbed by the outloading of gear into the car transit box and my wading jacket, where it will remain for the next 8 months.

 

GFC - Bottom Layer

GFC - Middle Left Layer

The sliding shelves lift out to allow full access to the salmon reels in the bottom layer.  The black enamelled box at top left is my grandfather's Hardy oddments box, fitted for weights, Devon hooks and swivels, probably of pre- World War 1 vintage.






This shelf contains the entirety of my business-end salmon kit - flies, tubes, polyleaders and tippet material.  The blue box is labelled 'Low' (water), the red 'High': it's that simple.  The big clear tube box lives in the car pack and feeds the Snowbee mini-box as necessary.  Four patterns of tubes predominate: Black & Yellow (early season); Cascade; Shrimp; and Sunray Shadow.




This week's immediate challenges lie in checking, purchasing and delivery.  Identifying the small gaps in the inventory and producing the shopping list is quick and pleasurable.  John Norris is very efficient, but there's a lead time to delivery.  Then there's stuff that needs fixing.  Fortunately the list isn't extensive and in January I'd sent my waders off to Diver Dave for their annual service and re-proof (£35 very well spent); and re-proofed the wading jacket with its shooting cousin's end of season wash (Nikwax Goretex Wash & Re-Proofer).  Nevertheless I still need to:

• Get the life jacket off for servicing (Diver Dave again)(done).
• Replace the studs the wading boots shed in September and October.  That will have to wait until I get back from UAE.  There are 2 things to bear in mind.  The ultra-hard and more expensive studs are good, but unless your boots have specific studding points, screw-in studs tend to fall out before they wear out, so I just buy standard items.  US manufactured studs are 1/4 inch, whereas European are 6 mm, which handily fit the hex-drive socket in my electric drill.  This reduces re-studding time to 5 minutes with the wading boot clamped in the Workmate.
• Replace the worn laces in the wading boots before they break on the first day of the season.  I'd bought a pair and a spare, only to find that I'd  picked up the wrong length.  With all the eyes wading boots generally need a 64-72 inch lace (yes, I know that sounds enormous).  I always keep a spare pair in the transit box - which I needed on the last day of last season) and so has to be replaced.
• Buy new fluorocarbon tippet material: Seaguar 19 lbs for springers and 15 lbs for the rest of the season.  It's expensive but safer to ditch last year's spools, especially if you don't wish to be ridiculed by a Tweed ghillie doing his party trick of snapping your tippet with disdainful ease (which tempts me to pop a spool of pike wire into the box to catch him out).
• Check my stock of polyleaders (I've used Airflo for years and found them as good as any) and order replacements as necessary.
• Go through the fly boxes to ascertain the gaps.  The bent, broken and worn out went in the bin at the end of the season.  Now I need to fill the gaps, mostly larger Cascade doubles and a couple of black and yellow tubes.  The reasoning behind black and yellow as an early season fly is given in last year's  Here's Looking at You post.
• Replace the mesh on my trusty old Gye net with the new one obtained last month by phone from Snowbee in Plymouth (£14).
• Check and if necessary replace the magic elastic that operates my folding wading stick.  It's been working for years, albeit getting a bit softer with each passing season (bit like its owner), but it won't last for ever, and I'd sooner fix it in the workshop than have to do some kind of bodge-fix on the riverbank.
• Wash and polish the lines (see The Countdown for method)
• Check the reels to make sure nothing got stuck during the winter stowage (despite the end of season servicing).  The unreeling and re-winding of the line cleaning process takes care of this.

When you get to my age you start to rely on methodical lists like this, otherwise you risk arriving on the river minus one wader boot.  But I shan't need my waders next week in sunny Abu Dhabi where it's 20 degrees warmer than Yorkshire and they don't have salmon - yet!  That said, I should sooner be chilling my nether parts in a cool river in pursuit of a silver springer, however challenging the odds, which will be the subject of my next post.