Hogging lies

Can ghillies hand out too much information to anglers? I heard a ghillie on the opposite bank last week pointing out the "hot spots" to his rods. This, you may argue, is exactly what a ghillie or guide is paid to do.

But anyone who has fished a beat for many years will know that while some stretches of river perform better than others, catches are by no means restricted to the best known lies. Besides, the performance of different pools varies depending on the water height.

The problem with giving out information in this way is that it can encourage anglers to believe that the hot spots are the only places where they can catch fish. The result is that they begin to hog the favoured lies which really does them no favours since the lies are flogged with cast after unproductive cast.

I saw this happening all too frequently among a party of anglers fishing the opposite bank to me on the Dee last week.

One angler did not move more than 30 or 40 yards in a morning and plastered a promising taking spot with dozens of poor casts.

He would shape up his line with a reasonably executed roll cast before launching a longer spey cast. The roll cast would have been quite sufficient since the fish were lying close to his bank. But the spey cast failed almost every time because it could not turn over his fly which landed on the water in a crumpled mess.

I didn't feel too frustrated, fishing the opposite bank, since there was plenty more water to fish, but it makes for poor angling etiquette when people do not move purposefully through a pool.

The ghillies on our beat have tried to open up new pools in order to give anglers more variety and to relieve the pressure on popular taking places. While these can hardly be described as favoured pools, they are spots where fish are occasionally taken and sometimes it's better to visit a neglected pool than one that is being overfished.

One morning I arrived at a pool before the "flogger" and, fishing the sparsest of flies on a size eight hook, had a nice fish that seized the fly almost immediately after it hit the water. I was fishing a floating line on a long cast and the take was almost summer-like, quite unlike those you often have to search out at depth during the spring.

The floating line was doing well on the Dee last week although, when in a taking mood, the fish were not too choosy about the depth. Our flogging friend saw me catch the fish and took up residence in the spot for the rest of the day until leaving at about 6 pm.

I was fishing further down stream when a friend turned up to suggest we went off to the pub. But sometimes there are evenings when you just know there is going to be a fish. It just feels right.

So I suggested he had a few casts over Lucky Hole (the lie where I had had the fish in the morning and that had been covered all day long from the other side). He went for his rod and three casts later he was in to a fish that, unfortunately, was lost at the net. This fish took a weighted Monkey pattern fished on an intermediate line. So much for all the science over line depth and fly type.

Was the ghillie right to urge his anglers to concentrate on favoured places? These lies produced fish, after all. I think he should have advised his rods to fish down the whole length of the pool with maybe one or two extra casts over the most promising lie. Fairness demands that all the anglers should have a chance in the known lies. Everyone's chances are improved this way because fish are unlikely to rise to a series of duff casts in the same spot. A pool need not be rested too long but it does benefit from a rest.

The lies were all close to the far bank yet some anglers would insist on wading them when a short cast from their bank was quite sufficient without disturbing the fish. What is this urge to wade? I would far rather stand on a bank than plunge waist deep in to the limb-numbing water of a spring salmon river.

I noticed that none of the fish we caught last week was held in the scissors, suggesting that they came up from behind rather than turning on the fly. All three of my fish were the softest takes and two of them were quite lightly hooked, but they all came to the net without much trouble.

One of the fish had been mauled around the flanks by either an otter or a seal. There were a pair of claw marks on one side and some exposed flesh on the other. Will it survive until spawning? Well it has the chance (the Dee runs a catch and release policy), but I would have preferred to have knocked it on the head and would have debated the option had the ghillie been present.

Instead I made sure it never came out of the water; nor was it handled. It didn't seem to have been weakened much by its ordeal so I'd like to think that its wounds will mend.



NB. I'm not sure of the name of my fly and can't recall how I came by it. It's very similar to a Silver Wilkinson or a Logie. The main hairs are yellow, blue and red over a silver shank with a red band holding a wisp of yellow hair at the rear. It's a good hooking fly because, unlike flies with long tails, there is nothing for the fish to grab other than the hook.

I caught my other fish on a Black Frances - an excellent spring fly but one which sometimes produces a strong pull rather than a take as a fish grabs at the whiskers trailing from the shank. With this fly I had a 4:1 pull-to-take ratio whereas each take on the Silver Wilkinson (or whatever it is) produced a fish. If you happen to know the name of the fly (pictured) please let me know.

April on the Tay

The problem with turning up to fish on the River Tay in the spring is that the fishing has been so poor in recent years I find it difficult to raise any sense of optimism and, believe me, I am an optimist.

No matter, it's good to practice my casting. On the Monday morning I had been fishing just 20 minutes at a place they call the "little shot" - an old netting spot - on the Benchill beat of the Upper Scone fishings, when I had the strongest of pulls on the fly.

I had run a Black Frances through the pool on an intermediate line with a fast-sinking tip, and had just changed the fly to a Temple Dog.

I retraced my steps on the bank and, after about three or four casts, hooked in to a salmon. Could it have been the same fish? Unfortunately I lost it after two or three minutes, but it was a reminder that I shouldn't have been so complacent. Fish were running and, although they weren't stopping, there was always the chance of a take.

On the Tuesday it rained heavily, leaving the water coloured for much of Wednesday. On the Thursday I was fishing the Cawnpore pool just opposite Stanley Mills when a fish took my fly just three or four yards from the bank. It was not a big fish, about 8 lbs, but it stripped off a lot of line before I beached it and returned it, having left my landing net at home.

On the Saturday morning I hooked in to another a little further down the same bank but this too, came off after a couple of minutes. I noticed that the landed fish was lightly hooked. These were fast running fish, hitting the fly from behind, not turning on it in the classic take.

Our group had six fish for the week, not great but a hell of a lot better than some recent years when the return has been one or two or none at all. Had all the lost fish held we would have been in double figures.

It was satisfying too, that the bank outfished the harling boats, with four coming from the bank, three on "flying C" spinners. I was the only one fishing fly but it fished just as well as the spinners. In fact I would argue that it fished better because it fishes a little more slowly.

It's too early to be optimistic about the Tay but the spring runs do seem to be improving gradually. It will be interesting to compare this with the Dee in a week's time.

Fish art

It was great to see trout in Madeira's levadas last week. These are narrow channels used to transport spring water for irrigation all over the island. The channels are not more than two feet wide and the water rarely more than a foot deep so the fish don't grow very big, but there are plenty of them.

In one of the plunge pools at the foot of a water fall we saw trout to about a pound. They were breeding too.

The week away was bad timing for grayling fishing since last week was settled weather in Surrey where I live, whereas this week the rains are back, muddying up the river.

So I've taken out my fly boxes for something to do and tonight we'll probably have a tying session. Yippee, says Gill. Just now I'm sorting out some salmon flies for trips to Scotland in the spring.

Black Frances

Last year (when the water was unseasonably low) I did well with a tungsten-headed Black Frances (you can read how this classic Icelandic fly got its name here). The yellow paint on the tungsten head very quickly rubs off but the fly sinks quickly, allowing it to present well in the stream straight after the cast.

I will probably do most of my fishing with the Frances again this spring, alternating with something brighter such as a cascade tube or a temple dog, trying various weights and sizes depending on the conditions.

I plan to stick with an intermediate line on the Dee and Tay with maybe a fast sinking tip in the deepest Tay pools.

Fishing lust

The other thing that has aroused my fishing lust today is a copy of Beneath the Surface, The Wildlife Art of David Miller that arrived in the post today. David's paintings are superb. Check him out at his website here. I reviewed his book here.

I have just been in touch with another of my favourite marine artists, Malcolm Cheape who lives in Perthshire. His pictures are very much a narrative, containing all kinds of imagery, drawings and sometimes notes relating to the subject. It's clear from our conversation, not to mention his art, that he has a strong interest in history.

Malcolm told me about the Gask Ridge, a string of Roman forts in Scotland, one of which I notice was Inchtuthil. I mentioned this site near Spittalfields in a column about freshwater mussels. I wonder if these forts had a role in helping the Romans exploit and protect pearl fishing interests?