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Combat fly-fishing
At the recent World Youth Fly Fishing
championships in the Czech Republic Charles Jardine was
amazed at how different and committed Czech anglers.
There was something else and had I not
looked very closely I would have missed it. The top dropper,
instead of the traditional second heaviest nymph was in fact
a dishevelled looking dry fly cum emerger allowed to sink.
Odd? I thought so, too. But when I noticed it being fished
I suddenly realised that whilst it may have been taken by
the odd trout as the flies drifted toward the angler it was
there for other reasons. One: it was used as a sub-surface
indicator. If it moved or twitched oddly, they struck. And
second: it was used as an attractor when the angler wanted
to re-fish some water but did so by casting down stream and
twitched the flies – in a streamer style strip – through
runs and riffles felt to still hold a fish or two. And there’s
more to the mystery … the heaviest fly was on the point
and not in the middle. I know, the plot further thickens.
Believe me, in the water that was being fished the style was
deadly – and the point and second fly were not that
heavy either. Heresy. Still, you can’t argue with 28
trout in three hours of fishing, especially off a 400 yard
section. I kid you not: 28! Or was it 32 …?
It appeared this upstream approach style and the flies I’d seen used seemed
to be the ‘bedrock tactic’ throughout the victorious team members
and the third placed ‘second’ Czech team. Certainly, there were lessons
for us all to learn from. And certainly, having just returned from a trip to
the western United States, I can report that trout there like the tensioned looped
leader style a great deal (and also the flies), just as much as their European
kith and kin. However, Buzz, the river warden on DePuy’s spring creek just
outside Livingston Montana, is still hurt, baffled, bewildered and in utter denial
that one – actually it was more – of his celebrated and legendary
fastidious rainbows had the bare- faced audacity to fall to the rather unique
charms of a somewhat oversized Czech nymph dressed in shrimpy clothes – he
called it a scud (not the missile, mind you). The size I used to overcome a particularly
boisterous chute of water was an 8, the usual, apparently, is about a 16. As
I have often said, no one bothered to chat to the trout. Just as well really:
bad for a reputation, having a chat with a trout |
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