the flee!

Today i came to a conclusion, a bit late perhaps but i realised i am OBSESSED with fly fishing!
Not in an elitist "fly only sir" kind of way, i love my coarse rods to death but i love the thougfht of fishing the fly and more importantly im seriously excited about catching fish this way. Not just your usual troots, awesome as they are. The real buzz for me comes from catching less conventional species, tonight i drew up a shortlist of species i hope to catch on a fly this year (including some ive caught already)

here go's ; Trout, pike, roach, carp, rudd, TENCH, BREAM , perch, mackerel, pollack, Bass and finally mullet.

Now i realise there are a couple on the list that are gonna be pretty tough, the last 4 especially given that ive never fished in saltwater, having said that, the highlighted tench and bream will pose about as big a challenge as any fish can in my opinion. Im almost certain by the end of the year i'll have caught about half that list but its always nice to dream.

I reckon im pretty lucky to live in an unlikely fishing paradise, ive got all the freshwater species mentioned within minutes drive from my house, better make sure i take advantage of them!

Troots.

Today there were a distinct lack of them. By that i dont just mean that i caught nothing (which i didnt), i mean that the whole day i saw no trout. At all.

Usually i at least spook some fish and see them scatter off, get the odd take or at very least see a rise or two, but nothing.

The apparent troot free status of the burn worried me a bit to be honest, i noticed a lot of algae in it aswell, for a hill burn at this time of year this is very rare. I just hope theres been no fish kill and that today was just one of those nightmare sessions. Conditions were not ideal, blowing a gale from the east and it was bloody cold, the burn was also bare bones today, hardly any water at all. pretty grim it has to be said.

The only thing that made the day was a dipper giving me a heart attack. Just as i was lifting to cast again there was a massive thud on the rod, HUGE TROOT i thought, but no, i noticed a dipper staggering about on the bankside lookin g a wee bit dazed. Daft bugger had flew into my rod! He flew away pretty quickly after the indignity, made the cold hands worthwhile i guess.

scott.

well as promised i did return to catch that pike, all be it a 4 pounder, but today saw the first double hook up of my piking career! we waited all day and finally the alarm screamed, and i struk into a nice little pikey, then in the midst of all the comotion my brothers alarm whent just as i netted my pike. madness! his produced another little 4ish pounder, the middle photo shows the one from last week aswell. thatwas all the action we saw all day, the rest of the day was spent watching the local wildlife in the form of waterbirds, the rare great crested greeb was the highlight of that part of the day, and the pike wer the icing on the cake. after all that comotion the local Young team showed up with the bucky bottles and proceded to throw stuff in the water and generaly make us want to go home, so we done the boost at about 4, all in all a fab days fishing! jolly good.

Piking.

Thursday saw the first real fishing trip i have been on in a while. A recon trip to not-so well known loch in the north lanarkshire region, good time to be out pike hunting with them spawning, saw many pike jump in the shallows, and loads of huge splashes in the margins....well i whent with my brother,(not my usuall fising partner) as he was the one who told me of this place, we set up our two ledger rods, i cast one in marginal areas and one into a nice little drop off i had found, and the same with my brother, the traps were set and now we had to play the waiting game.

after about an hour of being at the swim we heard the heart stopping bleep of the alarm, whos rod? my brothers, but this produced a storming run. My brother hit into it, and the fight was on. after a good few minuets of playing the fish i done the honours and netted the fish, it was a nice jack at 8-9lbs all battle scared from mating, livly buggar. he returned safe and sound.

well i sat and i prayed but to no avail, that was all the action we saw all day, in all a succesfull trip i think. i will post pics of the fish soon, next thursday we will return and i want at least one fish from it this time!

yesterday.

Yesterday i enjoyed my first full day on a burn this season. I got to try out my new scierra wading trousers (most awesome) and fished a few new pools on a stretch i thought i knew inside out.

I started out on the usual "go to" pools, without any success it has to be said, it was only when i started getting adventurous that it got exciting..

I had a bash at a much bigger than average pool for this burn, ive always struggled on this bit of water despite it looking PERFECT, today was no exception but i was getting loads of bites.

I moved about a mile upstream, bumped into a guy who insisted there were no trout in the burn but that he used to fish it for pike! As awesome as that sounds i cant fathom how pike would survive in a burn that averages 4 feet wide and 1 foot deep. Maybe its worth a lure fishing session?

walking further upstream i came to a stretch that i stumbled across last year, its very narrow, exceptionally overgrown and basically a nightmare to fish. But yesterday it was more of a welcome challenge than a nightmare, even turning over my leader properly was a feat in itself, the fish were just a bonus. I dont know what it is about this stretch but it always gives me the creeps, the path peters away close to a small cottage in the deepest darkest stretch of the forest, maybe ive just been watching too many horror films but theres definately an uneasy air about the place.

Anyway, contrary to my expectations i didnt blank, i managed only 3 fish in about 7 hours, all on the trusty hares ear nymph variants, but i was pretty happy at that, not monsters, one of them merely 5 inches long, but they were some of my proudest catches given the jungle type environment i whisked them from. True to form i got no pictures of them, when you fish on your own most of the time as i do its impractical to photograph every trout you get, especially when your rucksack is on the bank and your in the water. i did get some nice pictures of two of the runs i fished ^^^^^^^^^^^^^