A Desolate Wasteland

I am getting my shit together in preparation for this season. I don’t yet feel that I am in a position to get out there and start fishing again yet. Sure some people have been catching fish but after a brief week or so of mild weather we have been plunged back in to winter with temps hovering around 7 degrees. Yuck!

I decided to take the plunge and bought myself a new net off of Ebay – I threw caution to the wind and bought an Airflo Pan Net which will keep fishing buddy Alex happy as it is nearly double the size of my old net which I have used for around the last 15 years.  I am amazed that something so sturdy can be made for 15 quid delivered to your door. The handle is solid rubber which feel s nice in my hand and the quality of the mesh is good, it is not too deep as well which always annoyed me about my old net – having to reach down into the depths to try and grip a trout and untangle it from the mesh. It is always nice getting new stuff and I look forward to christening it with some giant trout.

The opening day on the Kelvin went well apart from me slipping on my arse trying to get down the stairs at the Galleries Pool. Thankfully I managed to save the bottle of whisky as my body got in the way of its descent. Also I did not manage to take out Paul Young as I went down which I am sure would have went down well with the locals anglers.

You may have guessed by now however I have a third child arriving in May which will curb my fishing time so expect lots of short reports about Light Rock Fishing on the Clyde Estuary – this should be fun as I have no idea what I am doing.

A few weeks ago I was standing at the hellish toilet in Gambado when I realised I had my fly down for the whole day. Gambado is a “soft play” at Xscape,  if you do not have kids then a good description is that it is where lots of angry parents allow their children to run about crazy while you sip on an expensive cold coffee.  Your kids also want pound coins to play the puggies.

Anyway, I went to the toilet and realised my fly was down which meant it was down the whole day , I tried to remember when this may have happened.

That day started out simply enough a nice leisurely walk down from my rainy hill in Helensburgh to the train station. On the way I came across my first toad of the year which was happily hopping across the road with a few cars coming towards it. Being the ever animal safety conscious person that I am I assisted it with my foot to get it to the side of the road out of harm’s way. It looked a bit grumpy however I was glad it was not squashed. I wondered if it got washed down a drain whether it would survive and walked down to get my train.

I met fishing buddy  Alex at St Georges Cross as we were heading up to the Glasgow Angling Centre opening day. He was all excited as he had never been to one before. The night before he was telling me he wanted to be there at 0900 for the “BARGAINS” in case they ran out however I managed to calm him down and we agreed to meet at 1000.

Wandering around Alex unkindly noted that it was similar to a normal day only busier and smellier however his basket was full of “BARGAINS” so he was happy. Gary (Glasgow Angling Center Game Manager) put me in line with a guy to chat about LRF – his name is Jake Schogler who has teamed up with Sea Angler Magazine as one of their LRF / Light Game contributors. He was telling me all about the wrasse and the drop shot action and at one point I wanted to leave right there and then and go and catch some fish.

I took part in the standard casting competition and obviously did as well as ever (I came somewhere between 2^nd and last) and then bought some LRF stuff.

On arriving home I gazed over my fly boxes and found the remnants of what looked like a war. It was a desolate wasteland of hopes and dreams. Where once a neat selection of flies stood in ordered rows of size and colour now entire sections were missing obviously due to sacrificing themselves to huge trout or trees. More probably trees.

Random flies that I had obviously stuck in for some specialist task lay undisturbed – last season I had no real need for my black wooly bugger or my spent spinner with its wings splayed out.

I keep a row of around 6 flies that are my go to selection and these are looking a bit battered and weary, they are usually discarded when they no longer float due to becoming so wrecked from trout teeth.

Further fly tying update still to come…