Sandbagged!

Sandbagged!
Photograph by Steve Barnett

Friday 10 June 2011

Easy pools and hard ones

Both can get you swearing under your breath.  The easy pools get taken for granted and you snag up behind you on a grass seed head.  The hard ones, well they are just plain hard!

Here are two pools to consider...


This is an easy pool by an island where the river is turning sharp left as we face it.  There are some drag conditions to take into account but basically if you keep the back cast up high you can expect some success if you haven't frightened the fish.  But don't take places like this for granted or you will get caught up and the Recording Angel will be adding to the list...

Here's another on the same river...


This is hard.  Not so much a letter box more a keyhole but the fly must be placed under those white flower heads of the elder bush on the other bank because that's where the fish are in that run.  It's no good going upstream round the other side of the tree on your right here because you may as well have thrown yourself in for the way the fish would clear off!  The wind will of course be blasting downstream at you to add to your trials.  But don't swear too much.  Expect it to be hard and plan the cast accordingly.  Fitting the line through the keyhole up the middle of the river and with that slightly longer tippet on your leader the wind will turn it under the flower heads and you have a chance!  It matters not one jot whether the fish is a big or little one, catch here and you can be justly proud of yourself and if you do swear in amazement, the Recording Angel will probably join in with you and note down that you did b***dy well!

Regular Rod

2 comments:

  1. Your assessment of those pools is right on.

    If I were fishing a pool with only one small twig in the stream, my fly would find it.

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  2. I encountered a stream today that looked like the hard hole x 10. Made me think of this post. It was so hairy that I had to call it a day on account that I was spooking more fish than catching:) Great Post.

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