Fancy a day on the Wye Saturday, although I've fished the Wye a couple of dozen times, I still feel a novice. Any advice on the best tactics? LDO hatching? Love your blog.
Hi Fancy a days fishing Saturday, although I've fished the Wye a couple of dozen times, still feel a novice. Any advice on tactics. LDO hatching at the moment? Love your blog.
On Tuesday I took a guest on the Wye and we spent a lot of time sat down, just watching and waiting. It was the right thing to do. We saw the occasional fly and the occasional rise to such flies. Then it was a simple matter of approaching and catching the fish. The flies were Large Dark Olives, a few Grannom (that hatched almost like Polaris missiles leaving the water) and a few Yellow Sally stone flies. The Double Badger served us well. We had some success. Why? That sitting down, watching carefully and waiting was the key. Casting blindly runs the risk of scaring the fish and rendering them uncatchable.
Warren 'phoned us to see how we were doing. He mentioned that folk were generally struggling with "nothing hatching and nothing rising and that some folk were simply not catching anything in despite of fishing hard all day.
That is a trap, which is easy to fall into. Little activity is not no activity on the water. There is nearly always something going on somewhere along the river. The right thing to do is make sure that the process of observation is not overlooked. Dashing about casting and casting and casting into "every likely looking place" might fluke one or two successes, but instead of trying to compensate for Nature's apparent lack of activity with lots extra activity from the angler, a better policy is to slow down to the pace of the day. Watch more and you will see more and this will lead to you fishing where the fish are and if you are not crashing about but instead being extra stealthy then you have a better chance of success.
Nice seasonal record. How big were the fish please?
ReplyDeleteI'd say 12 to 14 inches long in these pictures. They seem to be all sizes along this popular bed of gravel...
ReplyDeleteLovely pictures! It's always wonderful to see fish thriving in their environment. Too bad that greed has spoiled so many streams around the globe.
ReplyDeleteFancy a day on the Wye Saturday, although I've fished the Wye a couple of dozen times, I still feel a novice. Any advice on the best tactics? LDO hatching? Love your blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Fancy a days fishing Saturday, although I've fished the Wye a couple of dozen times, still feel a novice. Any advice on tactics. LDO hatching at the moment? Love your blog.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday I took a guest on the Wye and we spent a lot of time sat down, just watching and waiting. It was the right thing to do. We saw the occasional fly and the occasional rise to such flies. Then it was a simple matter of approaching and catching the fish. The flies were Large Dark Olives, a few Grannom (that hatched almost like Polaris missiles leaving the water) and a few Yellow Sally stone flies. The Double Badger served us well. We had some success. Why? That sitting down, watching carefully and waiting was the key. Casting blindly runs the risk of scaring the fish and rendering them uncatchable.
DeleteWarren 'phoned us to see how we were doing. He mentioned that folk were generally struggling with "nothing hatching and nothing rising and that some folk were simply not catching anything in despite of fishing hard all day.
That is a trap, which is easy to fall into. Little activity is not no activity on the water. There is nearly always something going on somewhere along the river. The right thing to do is make sure that the process of observation is not overlooked. Dashing about casting and casting and casting into "every likely looking place" might fluke one or two successes, but instead of trying to compensate for Nature's apparent lack of activity with lots extra activity from the angler, a better policy is to slow down to the pace of the day. Watch more and you will see more and this will lead to you fishing where the fish are and if you are not crashing about but instead being extra stealthy then you have a better chance of success.
RR
Thanks RR, you've described me down to a T, after a 60 mile drive and a days fishing I'm exhausted
Delete