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.Labels: Black Frances, Dee, ghillies, Logie, Lucky Hole, Monkey, resting lies, Silver Wilkinson
