Do you ever get days like this?

by Alistair

I want to know how on Monday I managed to blank in such spectacular style. Not on the Kelvin this time but at my other special little place.
Last week I at least hooked trout albeit they managed to get away, I had deceived the trout into taking my fly. That was satisfying, even though they skedaddled. On Monday I did not even connect with a trout. There was a few trout rising, both Emmanuel and Alex managed to hook trout, in fact they both caught nice trout. It was Alex’s first time here and it takes some getting used to- he managed just fine (maybe he stole my mojo?)

In my defence it was hard fishing and I was using a new rod that I was casting for the first time, but still I couldn’t help but feel I was not concentrating or something. My patience was wearing thin, I could blame my new rod but I felt the pressure was on to catch a trout. The more I worried about blanking the more likely it was going to happen- like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Do you ever get days like that? People around you are catching fish? Every fish you cast to stops rising or your fly is immediately affected by drag (or micro drag for that matter). You change flies but it still doesn’t work? I even changed to one of Emmanuel’s deer hair emergers- a fly that he was catching all his trout on- as soon as it was on my tippet it was shunned by all trout- they even stopped rising when it drifted over them
eman
Of course what I should have done was stop thinking about catching fish and go and watch the other guys fishing- learn something new. Take a breather, a cigar, sit down have a drink of water and just think how nice it is to be sitting in the open instead of cooped up in some bar somewhere drinking pint after pint after pint and talking about women and football.
shunned me here
Lesson learned- do you ever get days like that?

6 thoughts on “Do you ever get days like this?”

  1. Hiya Alistair,
    Yea, had them ” a plenty ” but not too many of late .. something to do with my getting my 5th rainbow of this season yesterday … The session started off with my ” booby of choice ” being got at by one of our piscean friends .. attacking the hook, then running with it .. took me by surprise on both occasions .. the hook hardly got time to sink .. then off it went … I think these fish are there to take the pi** .. and do !! … in the end the specimen I caught was again taken on the ” orange booby ” .. The one that I had the fun with was a ” green fritz version ” with a white maribou tail .. will have to tie up more of these .. same with a black tail is said to be good too :o)

    Got to admit, it is getting a bit boring .. same old, same old … fling in the booby and out comes the fish … it’s only fair that the club rules say after the 3 fish limit you have to take the booby off … too easy :o)

    Laters :o)
    George

  2. But then fishing for rainbows in “ok” conditions your chances of catching a fish are way higher than going after a finickity wild fish.

  3. Alistair

    Don’t worry – we all have days like that regardless of how good a fisherman we may be.

    And provided you are clad in waders, waistcoat and shades you will never lose your mojo!!

    Alex

  4. hi Alistair
    have you ever fished the river etive or loch etive?iv been going up for a good few years now and fishing the river and loch is great fun on the fly.the trout are not big but the sport is great!the river is a spate river so you can only realy fish the pools but in the evening its great watching the wild trout taking a small fly from the surface OF THE LOCH!

  6. YES , WE ALL HAVE DAYS KIKE THIS. o Monday on the Avon trout were rising but would take nothing i offered them, probably smutting or tiny land bred things. I did not spook them as they kept rising but ignored everything i showed them, v.v. frustrating

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