The Urban Fly Fisher

Broken Toe

Was away for a week to the middle class playground of Centr Parks and was supposed to meet up with Matt from North Country Angler. Unfortunately the only day I could get away was a day that winter appeared to strike with low temps and rain so we decided to cancel. Plus I had somehow managed to break a toe which the kids loved to stamp on to see my tears.

On my return home I decided to visit a local wee stream that I have never fished before returning to work. I limped my way out the car and was glad that I was wearing my new wading boots which are a size too big as it means that I had plenty of wiggle room. The stream itself is mostly overgrown and boulder ridden and to be fair I did alright with a few trout caught on the dry fly.

Bouldery – great for painful toes!

However it kinda felt like the last time I fished a wee stream in that I was fishing over water that should contain a trout but they were not responding. Looking back the next day it was fairly pouring down and I wonder if the impending low pressure has something to do with it.

Clear and low…

The trout I caught were small but fought feisty, no pictures though. They were not parr as no Salmon or trout get up here to spawn. I sometimes wonder why some wee streams like this hold a lot of trout of good size and others just wee ones, is lack of food or habitat. My wee urban burn I sometimes fish that was decimated by a couple of guys wanting bait for Pike seems to be picking up after a few years and some of those wee pools hold some nice trout.

Nice long pool…

I will come back and give this another bash at some point when my toe means I am not wincing at every step.

On my way home I loved the sunset although it was an impending omen of what was to come…

“Gorge”eous!

I stood next to Paul as he lay on the ground moaning in pain. I am not a big fan of sympathy unless it is really bad (giving and receiving) however sometimes when another man has hurt himself and it will pass in a short while there is nothing you can or should say, even saying “that gotta hurt” feels lame. So I stood there gazing at some birds and glancing at Paul just to ensure that I had not misjudged the situation and he was going to require a helicopter rescue. He rolled over on to his knee and muttered something about his leg hurting even more later on and I kinda knew he was going to be ok.

We had been trudging back through long grass after a hard days fishing and just when walking had became almost automatic Paul was in a ditch with his knee connecting to a boulder. My own ankle is a bit off after twisting it somehow as when wading I ended up thigh deep in a bottomless hole and putting it under undue pressure. What this of course equaled was the signs of two guys totally out of practice. Sure, I have been fishing just not in rivers. I have had frequent trips to my wee reservoir and several trips to the Salt however to me “real” fishing is to trout in rivers and I have been doing far too little of it of late. Which is why when I phoned Paul visiting his wee gorge which is deep enough to keep out the wind seemed like a great idea.

Bliss!

The stream was boulder strewn with some long deep pools and wee riffles. We spotted some trout when we first arrived however these were pretty much the only ones we spotted all day. The trout were just off for some reason, when fishing these wee burns it is safe to assume that if a wee pocket looks if it has trout in it then it probably will. If the pocket does not then the next one will. Sadly when this happens again and again it means the trout are not playing ball.

Lots of interesting technical pools.

When we did finally find a feeding trout I managed to prick one and land two in the space of a a few minutes in a few yards of each other. It was a good indication what the rest of the river should have been like if it was switched on.

Me fishing a nice pool, I pricked a nice trout here too!

As we fished up the river I kept on thinking that this would have been great river for Tenkara and vowed that I would get my Tenkara rod set up for the next time.

Looking at the tide times for the week it seems that they should be pretty good for Sea Trout in the salt so a further report to follow.

Salty Sins!

“So what you are telling me is that you have been catching huge numbers of stocked trout during what might be the best week of wild trout fishing we have had all year”? said Alex, after I had told him about a wee local club that I have joined that stock a couple of reservoirs with excellent brownies. I had visited the wee reservoir last week and had an absolute ball catching what I reckon the best conditioned trout I have ever seen. They should be as they are fed over winter and they look it and fight like it to. I do not think my 7 weight has ever bent so much. It was such good fun that I went back the next evening to see if it was a fluke. It wasn’t, I lost count at a dozen!

“Do you not feel dirty?” Possibly a wee bit so as I had a spare couple of hours I headed down to the salt to catch some Sea Trout. I wished I had taken my fly rod as it was perfect for it. After an hour I had a couple of Sea Trout in my hand..

This was the smaller one!

I kept on casting…

I then caught what I thought was a monster but turned out to be a Mackerel, a good sized one. I then caught a few more and decided to slaughter a couple to not only practice my filleting but also to have for my dinner.

And very tasty they were too!

I am missing the Kelvin and note that Jim Burns had a ball the other night – go check out the River Kelvin Fishers page.

I think I need some Kelvin action – urgently!

How is your Season?

Mine is quite frankly weird!

I have been hellish problems with my Mazda, before Christmas I managed to spend a ton of cash on it and now it appears to have a recurring oil leak that the mechanic is unable to locate. Since it has been in and out the garage my access to fishing has been limited.

Anyway, between garage visits I have been out on the Sea Lochs spinning for Sea Trout – for a couple of weeks I thought I had totally cracked it and could do no wrong.

However, suddenly everything got a bit difficult and it was almost impossible to catch any trout in the salt at all.

Sadly, I have still not had a chance to head down to the Kelvin yet however even with this low water the trout fishing has been excellent.

I received a couple of goodie bags in the post this month. A while ago I received an email from Fanatik Baits asking if I wanted to try some of their gear for LRF. I thought it all sounded a bit scammy however in the mail came quite the parcel with some great looking soft plastics.

Fanatik Baits

Not had a chance to try them out yet however the kids are enjoying freaking out their Mother with lying them around the place. They look so life like that she will not touch them.

My second parcel was from Buff who wanted me to try out some new, er, buffs. They sent me one that had a design of a trout and a new polar one. I do not actually need to make anything up as quite frankly I love buffs and think everyone should have one:

I Love Buffs

Obviously I will not be wearing the polar one soon however will enjoy breaking a new one in until the kids get it.

I have joined a wee local club that has a couple of wee reservoirs so will probably give them a bash before the midgies place a dark and evil cloud over life.

Will update you later!

So how is your season going?

Sea Loch

It has been a cold weekend since Friday and this morning I managed to sneak away from the house for a few hours after Sea Trout. I noted the state of tide was right for a local spot where I knew Sea Trout had been caught before and decided that I may as well go for it. I decided that as I am such a novice at this I would leave the fly rod at home and instead use my brand new Tronix Pro HTO Rockfish ML 7ft 10in which I had bought last month.

Good State of Tide

I cast my wee Toby again and again and every now and then I wondered if I was doing it right and then noticed a dark shape following my lure – at least I knew they were their. I fished on and then for a half hour or so I was almost in a trance until something made me super aware of my surroundings, I noticed the birds and the waves as well as a Seal sunbathing a distance away. I felt a bump bump bump and almost at my feet it looked like two Sea Trout trying to get my Toby – thankfully one of them one!

The Winner

First Trout Trip!

Actually, looking at it this is my third trout trip.

I had a session at Carbeth Fishery with a group of disabled guys that I help through work and had caught a few slobs in the fly only pool including what might actually be my biggest rainbow on the fly. It was in the teens, I spotted it being stocked on the Carbeth Facebook page so I know it was the big one.

I then had a half hour session on my urban burn, you remember the one that had been cleaned out by guys looking for Pike bait. It has still not recovered.

So we decided that on Friday we would fish Paul’s new syndicate loch. A day bobbing about in a boat catching stockies while getting over a horrible chesty cold sounded great.

I had forgotten that the temperature would be horrifically low and that I was not yet fully recovered.

Paul had several new gadgets he wanted to try out, his electric engine and a couple of boat seats. As there was three of us I graciously sat on a soggy cushion however as Alex nearly tipped out the boat as his seat was wobbly I was glad I did not have the added stress of certain death to deal with.

Alex as usual consistently caught trout all day. If you take Alex to a dirty ditch I am sure he could haul in a couple of pounders caught on a humongous. I eventually worked out that he was fishing a lot deeper than we were and when I finally managed to get my fly deep enough i was awarded with a nice wild trout.

Alex told us a story about when he was fishing up at Lamington on the Clyde and he was fishing with a lure like fly to get deep. A chap on the opposite bank was observing him and telephoned some official to find out if it was against the rules. Finding out it was not he suggested that Alex go and fish for salmon or something with his lures and not trout. All this was overheard by Alex. If you fish all year with a bloody dry fly you are going to catch a fraction of the fish you would have by changing tactics lamented Alex.

Paul blanked however he was comfy in his seat.

Kelvin Opening Day (not opending) Photos!

River Kelvin Opening Ceremony ! 18th March 1100 Islay Inn

This Saturday it is all happening down the Kelvin. It is the annual River Kelvin Angling Association opening ceremony.

Here is a video from the past:

And that video was from 4 years ago so it is even more mental now! We now have rolls n sausage or bacon in the Islay Inn with a dram on the association and then a piper toots us to the river. Bring a pal and your wife and kids as I will be.

Here is another one:

Some actual quotes:

“A great couple of hours”

“We should do this every month”

“I thought a fight was going to break out any minute”

With recommendations like that how could you miss it?

Two Kelvin Videos!

Kelvin videos are like buses, you wait for ages and then two excellent ones come along at once.

The first is a video of some tree felling next to the river which at first I thought was going to be a bit of a bore however was actually very cool.

The second is a drone over the Kelvin. It was on Youtube vut was removed probably because they sold the footage to Glasgow Live however I may just by cynical – here it is!

Stocktaking

“April is the cruellest month, breeding. Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing. Memory and desire, stirring”

Not in this fishers life at the moment – the cruelest month happens to be February as that is the one that happens to come before March. March of course signifying the start of the trout season on the 15th. At the moment it is around 12 degrees in Glasgow and somewhere in the UK it was 18 degrees. The news called 18 degrees spring weather however those are damn near summer temperatures. Of course if this keeps up then we will have a bumper spring with fit trout however never hope too much as we could be a foot deep in snow on opening day.

Last year as most of you are aware was a washout for my fishing due to a fire in my house. I am hoping this year should be better and in preparation I opened my fishing cupboard door to survey my gear – I could not see it due to the amount of toys that had been thrown in on top of and around my gear. My fishing store was now being used as a general shite cupboard. I spent some time moving stuff around and found two of my fishing cameras. Some nice pictures on them too from a late trip last year.

last trout of 2016

And another of Alex..

This was before a most enjoyable night out in Aberfeldy where I ended up paying £18 for two double whiskies – I am sure I was ripped off. We then proceeded to have a few more drams before retiring to our tent at around 2am. We knew it was this time as someone shouted at us to shut up as we were talking too loud. I then proceeded to spend the next day drifting in and out of consciousness next to the River Tay after retching behind a tree a few times.

“Look Daddy, a dead man!” I heard as a dog licked my face. It was not my proudest moment.

I was glad I found the camera!

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