An interesting day of 'lessons' for me on the Don today. Mid river from around 12.30 till after 5.30pm but much time spent dossing.
On arrival it was pretty awful. Decided I would suss this nymphing mullarkey so chose the Streamflex Plus (first mistake) and a Barrio #3 GT90. This would give me some flexibility if I decided to switch to dries. I must say this is a fantastic outfit to fish with, casting beautifully and with great feel, but as hard as I worked I couldn't tempt a fish in 2 hours. All through this there was the odd LDO coming off but unlike other days no interest. There were however fecking millions of small black midge/smuts - more of this in a separate post laters !
Ok, decided enough was enough and with conditions against me I clipped off the flashback nymph and subbed for a size 14 DHE leaving on the Waterhen Bloa on a dropper. I lurked about and found a pod of what seemed very small fish in slack water - now, myself and Mr.Goolager have had this conversation about splashy rises etc being dismissed as parr/bandies when in fact they are often decent fish (more of this later). I covered some of these "bulges" and got a fish on pretty much straight away, Waterhen Bloa. It jumped, christ a decent fish of around 1.5 lbs ! Well, kept him on tight, then that horrible feeling of slack line...realising that I still had the extension in the Streamflex ( so 10 foot) and bearing in mind everything I have been saying about 10 footers I took it off to the "not quite as crisp as they'd have you believe" 9' 6 ! I checked my flies - Partridge Classic Spider size 14, opened wide ! Mmmm so what Rob was experiencing last season. Clipped the bugger off !
Cast to another "bulge", bang straight on to the DHE, kept him tight and landed, at 1 lb 12 oz :
Had a wee seat and noticed a splashy rising fish in faster water mid stream where I'd seen a lunker on Monday. Up he came again. And again. Right, game on. Wind very difficult (with a Streamflapp #3) but I got the fly right over him, distance about 45 feet. Wallop, sooked the fly doon then out it came right out the water ! Must have been 5 to 6 lbs I kid you not, certainly a PB by a country mile. Kept him tight, out he came again, still on but as he dived the line recoiled. I thought I was broke (using Maxima Ultra at 3 lb you see) but no the fly was still on. However, on examining it the Varivas 2200 BL-B had opened (bottom fly):
Lessons learned today:
1) Go dry fly fishing whatever the conditions - Who Dares Wins.
2) Leave the Streamflex Plus in the car, better still at home if dry fly fishing !
3) Bin all Varivas 2200BL hooks, regardless how sad it makes you.
4) Bin all Partridge Classic Spider hooks.
5) Nymphing ? Pah !
Lindsay
