Fly Fishing in Summer

Fly fishing is a sport that conjures up an image in my mind of long balmy summers on the water (or in the water), fly fishing rod in hand and casting a long line with a juicy dry fly to a rising trout. That is sometimes a reality, however, most of the time, especially for those of us that fish still water stocked lakes and reservoirs, we find ourselves fly fishing for fish that we know are there but will not take any form of fly we cast to them.

Why is this the case?

Well, after many years of fishing in this situation and speaking to many many fishery owners, the reason seems to be a culmination of a lack of  oxygen in the water and inactivity due to the heat! Yes, I said heat, I live in the North of England where the weather in the high of summer can be cold and rainy as it can be hot and sunny, you can never plan any outside activity in this country that can be spoilt by rain! So how can the weather affect these hardy steel heads and trout, and more importantly how can we trigger a bite in these conditions?

My answer is again to think like the fish, where would you go if you were hot and bothered and need some fresh air? You would try to find all of those things wouldn’t you, well, steel heads and trout will go to the best source of oxygen in in the coolest water, so we have 2 clues there.

Oxygen

Oxygen is made in various ways with water. It is sometimes pumped into big reservoirs and lakes to ensure a good supply to the trout and steel heads, but it is also found by river entrances, lapping shorelines and underwater streams. You can easily see the man made aerators, river entrances and lapping shores but you should ask the fishery manager if there are any underwater streams…you might be surprised with their answer! These are the places where we should be heading to, especially the man made aerators as the fish will congregate around these as they are a good way of ‘churning’ the water and produce found for the fish.

Coolest Water

Steel heads and trout will find the best water for themselves in summer and that normally means they are deep down, you may find you have to use a sinking line to catch these fish, so go searching for them. Ideally you should be fishing deep down near to a source of oxygen and you will increase your chances of catching in hot days by at least 10 times. OK, when the day turns into dusk they will start to rise and maybe take emergers or dry off the surface but in the middle of the day….go deep and bubbly!!

Best of luck

Carl

Using Sinking Line

Whilst fly fishing, why do fly fishermen and women need to use different lines? Well, the short answer is to get the fly you are using to where the fish are. Fly fishing is an unusual sport as most of the time whilst fly fishing you don’t know if the fish are there at all.  

So what makes a sinking line sink? The density of a fly line refers to whether the fly line float or sinks. And, if the fly line sinks, how the fly line is designed to sink.

A sinking and a fast sinking fly line  means that the line that will sink relatively quickly at a uniform rate. The actual sink rate of a sinking fly line will vary considerably and will be listed on the box. A sinking fly line can sink anywhere from 2 to 10 inches per second. Which sink rate is best really depends on how far down you need to take the fly and how fast you need to get it there. For fast moving water or real deep pools and lakes, a fast sink rate will be needed. Otherwise, you can use slow sinking lines to get the fly down to the right depth whilst still covering shallow water.

My personal preference is to use quiet a fast sinking line, something which sinks about 8 inches per second, that gets my flies/lures right to where i think the fish are and quickly. The only issue with this line for a new fly fishing enthusiast is that it is quiet difficult to cast unless you bring the whole of the line back, but to be honest, I wouldn’t want that to put a new angler off as it only takes a little practice to get the hang of it.

For the beginner angler who will be fly fishing rivers, lakes and resoviors, a floating fly line is a mandatory first fly line. Once the angler becomes proficient in casting, the sink-tip fly line is an excellent second fly line to have. A sinking-tip fly line allows an angler fishing in rivers to get their nymphs and wet flies down quite quickly into holes and in fast water, while still providing control over the fly line. On the other hand, if the angler will be primarily fly fishing lakes, an intermediate sinking line is a good choice, since the line will take the fly down slowly and because the fly line is still easy to cast. Full sinking fly lines are really only needed in specialized fly fishing circumstances or when fishing down deep in lakes and in saltwater.

For tip on fishing a sinking line and to watch me catch using it go to my fishery review.

Thanks for reading

Carl

Fly Fishing - Floating Line

In the art of fly fishing, there are many variants of fly fishing line. The important thing to work out before selecting which fly line to use while fly fishing is to understand where the fish are. Now, while fly fishing, you will be able to tell if the fish are on the surface as they will rise and you will see this, but what if they are not rising. To be successful at fly fishing you must think about your quarry and try to ‘think like a fish’.  if its hot (25+c) then the fish are unlikely to be rising in the midday sun, however, if you see fish rising then you will need to be able to turn to your floating line.

Floating Line – History

Floating line’s history harkes back to the 2nd century, where fly fishing roots can be traced. Floating line was used by all fly anglers as the materials did not exist to do anything other than float. Also, my theory is that the method or activity of fly fishing was developed by anglers actually ‘seeing’ the trout rise to take fallen or emerging flies from the rivers surface.

Nowadays, floating lines are engineered and manufactured to enable them to be cast easily, far, accurately, comfortably and successfully. If you ask any fly fishing instructor, they will start a novice on floating line as it is by far the easiest line to cat.

Floating Line – Use of

Ok, there is a common misconception with beginners that floating line is only for Dry Fly Fishing, well that couldn’t be further from the truth. Most fly anglers use floating line to fish depths of water from 10 feet to sub-surface, this depth is determined by the length of leader, time left after the cast for the fly to sink and speed of retrieval of the line. So there you can imagine you cover most of the depths at which the trout/steelheads hunt for food unless the weather is really hot, in which case you would try intermediate or sinking lines, but we will come on to those!

Floating lines come with many different variables like colour, weight and design, yes,  lines that do the same thing can be very very different. Firstly, dont let the colour of the line put you off, there are pink, yellow, green, blue, ivory and white as well as all of the fluorescent variants of those colours. Don’t worry the fish cant see the colour of the line, and if they can, it hasn’t stopped me catching with all of the above colours, what you want to buy is a floating line that is the best quality in your price range. I would say that you can get excellent floating lines for £30/$40, so I would tell a beginnner to not spend more than that initailly, they would be better getting a ‘weight forward’ line that matches there AFTM rating on their rod. Weight Forward just means that the majority of the weight in the line is closer to the end of the line than spread out acros the first 6-8feet, this just makes casting and accuracy easier for a new fly angler.

Floating Line

So, there you have a brief idea about floating line, any questions, please fire away on the blog!!!!

Caught on which fly?

What is the first thing all beginners ask when they meet another fly angler who has caught fish? Well, I know what 90% of people would say the first question would be…………”what fly did you catch your fish with”. That is really an irrelevant question, the question should always be ” what line where you using and how did you fish the line, when you caught your fish”. What fly they caught their fish with is an irrelevant question because the answer back could be “a damsel” for instances. The Damsel fly can be fished at all depths in the water, you can fish is near to the surface on floating line, mid water on an intermediate line and way down on a sinking or fast sinking line.

We need to know where the fish are feeding in the water, what band of water are the fish moving in, when you find the answer to that you will certainly catch fish if you follow the basic instructions. So how do you go about selecting the correct line, as a beginner, how do you go about buying the right line so you can fish at all different depths? Well, I will answer those questions in my next 3 blogs, I am going to cover the basics of Floating Line, Intermediate Line and Sinking Line.

Of course, if you do ask the question “what fly did you catch your fish with”, you might be able to work out what line and depth they were fishing at, for example, if the fly angler was using a dry fly you would be pretty certain they were using a floating line, the same with a wet fly or buzzers, but not always, I have caught many fish on fast sinking (Di8) line with buzzers.

Keep your eye out for my blog posts over the next few days and I will go into the detail and explode the myths around line selection!

Fly Fishing has many different facets, but the consistent theme through the whole sport is that your tackle must be the correct standard and individual items must be compatible with all your other tackle items.

Tackle Standards

I always tell new fly anglers that the standard of you tackle must be tip top, don’t worry so much about getting the most expensive Hardy rod, don’t worry about having top dollar fly line, but the standard of what you have must be good. Now, before I get hundreds of email telling me the most expensive tackle is the highest standard, let me tell you, I know that. Remember, I am talking about new starters in the sport, they are not going to spend £1000/$1500 on line, reel and rod. So the most important thing is that what they get is of a good standard. Well, how do they know what is good and what is not. The answer is simple, go to your local tackle shop or fly fishery and tell them you are new and you want a good standard of equipment. I think that fly fishing is the only sport where you can go into a specialist fly shop or fly fishery and be confident you are not going to get ripped off. They want you to go back and spend your money on the top quality gear, so they are going to treat you like royalty. In fact I know many many fly fisheries that would lend you fly gear to ‘have a go with’, before you buy.

Why does the standard have to be good? Well, a few reasons. Firstly and most important, we don’t want to harm the fish. Using old or incorrect fly gear will result in losing fish (possibly with the fly still lodged) or not being able to cast properly which can be dangerous. Remember, this applies to new and experienced fly anglers, old and worn expensive fly tackle is worse than having cheap new fly fishing tackle….

Tackle Compatibility

New fly anglers need to know the basics, and the very very basic thing to understand is that fly line and fly rods are rated individually. By that I mean that fly line comes in varying  weights, rods are specially designed to carry a certain weight of line. The line is manufactured to exacting industry standards called AFTM.

AFTM stands for the Association of Fishing Tackle Manufacturers. AFTMA stands for the American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers Association. Just in case you were wondering.

The AFTM is a scale of line weights. The heavier the line, the greater the AFTM number. The manufacturers weigh the first 10 yards excluding the level tip and rate the line according to the table.

AFTM Table

Incidentally, there is some controversy with regards to very end of the fly line. The level tip on some lines can be as much as 2 ft. This, I believe, was an industry standard. I have also heard that it was also a manufacturing fault and the level tip should in fact only be 6 inches.

The point of all this is that the fly line AFTM should match the rod’s AFTM.

If you were to put an 8 weight line on a 4 weight rod you would probably break the rod. You would certainly overload the rod and make it feel slow and sluggish.

If you were to put a 4 weight line on an eight weight rod you probably would find that the rod failed to bend very much and the casting would be very inefficient. the higher the AFTM rating, the heavier the line, therefore requiring a more sturdy rod. Fly lines up to AFTM rating of 5 are considered to be river lines, lines from 6 to 9 are considered to be still water lines and lines above 9 are considered to be sea lines….of course there are always exceptions!

So there you have it the very basics in fly fishing tackle standards and compatibility!

Trout Taking Dry`

Mayflies were one of the first winged insects, with fossils dating back over 300 million years – long before the dinosaurs! There are 51 species of mayfly known from the British Isles today and they range in size from less than 5mm to over 20mm.

Mayfly larvae, and the mayfly adults emerging from the water, are a vital source of food for many other freshwater creatures, especially fish such as trout and salmon. Mayflies, and other riverflies, help ensure that our rivers, lakes and streams are home to a rich variety of wildlife.

Mayfly life-cycle

Mayflies start life as an egg on the bed of the river, before hatching into a nymph. The nymphs feed on algae and other vegetable matter on the bed for up to two years in some species, before emerging from the surface of the water as an adult.

Mayflies are unique as insects in having two winged adult stages. After emerging from the water they fly to the bank where they shelter on the underside of leaves or in the grass. They then moult again, leaving behind their drab ‘dun’ skin to reveal their shiny ‘spinner’ skin. Following this moult they fly back to the water and form mating swarms dancing above the surface.

Mayfly myths!
The common name ‘Mayfly’ is quite misleading because this group of insects can appear throughout the year. In fact, at one point they were called dayflies due to some of the species having an adult life of a single day. The common name comes from the habit of one species, Ephemera danica, which emerge as adults when the Mayflower or Hawthorn is in bloom.

Although some species only live for as single day, or even just a few hours as adults, there are individuals or species that can live a bit longer than that. In fact most of the life of a mayfly is spent out of sight as a nymph.

Exciting Fishing!

May flies are my favourite way to fish, that means I am dry fly fishing right on the surface of the water. it is exciting to be able to see the fish take the fly and it also tends to be a more aggressive fight as the fish has really got energy to jump out of the water.

You know, sometimes us Fly Anglers make life a little too complicated, we deliberate over so many things, but newbie’s are 10 times worse due to lack of confidence/knowledge. I would like to bet that we would catch at least 1 more fish every visit if we made a quick decision and stuck to it for 30 mins at least. Too often do I see people change fly, then cast 3 times and change again, then change line from floating to sinking and back again, Give your choice of  tackle a chance, you thought it would work so don’t change too quick as you will be spending more time with the fly in your boat or on the bank than in the water. In fact, if you think about it, how long is your fly actually in/on the water? Not very much if you consider the setting up, casting, moving location, changing tackle, etc.  Solution = keep you chosen fly in or on the water for longer and guess what…..

Choose 3 flies !

Just as a suggestion, try this once. Your basic set up would be to have floating line on with a 9-13ft leader (if you can manage it) and the wind if there is any coming over your right shoulder (if you are right handed). Then, try to pick 3 flies, a wet, a lure and a buzzer pattern and pick one to start with don’t change for 30 minutes, in the 30 minutes spend 10 minutes fast retrieval, 10 slow and 10 medium whilst casting within a 30 ft arc, and then change to the next fly if no joy. When you get to the buzzer, instead of the fast retrieval section, just leave your line static. I pretty much guarantee you will at least have a bite in the 30 minutes and more likely a fish. However, this will give you confidence that A) there are fish ion the water and B) that you have the right fly on.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

Best of Luck !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am going to list a few fly fishing faults an the way to get around them, if you want real detail, download the free report!!

All flies tied on Basic Fly Tying Equipment

Leader Tangles

Yes, we have all done it. Pretending not to see the little knot in your leader. You have just seen a fish rise right in front of you, it looked a good size fish and its well within you casting distance. Change the leader or not? Absolutely, you must change your leader if you cant untangle the knot, you may hook the fish with the knot in the leader, you may even land it, but your breaking strain goes to roughly 35% of the stated breaking strain! So, if you are using 6lb fluorocarbon, you will not land a fish of 3lb, you should always remember that. Change it if you cant untangle!!!!

Flexibility

You must be flexible and prepared to change you position and tactics. All fish have to eat at some point, whether its raining, sunny, cold or thundering, so think about your quarry and imagine where these cold blooded fish would go if its any of the extremes of fine weather we have. If its hot, its likely they will be deeper, but not all of the time. In a hot summer month you see many fish rising. So don’t be cloned by the popular fishing press and think that ‘hot weather = fish deep all the time’…not true. Too many anglers learn a certain method and stick to it, be prepared to have a go at other methods of casting, like single haul, double haul, etc. Also, be prepared to fish where others don’t, like into the wind, or near trees. If you cant cast near trees or into the wind, you will never be able to do it unless you try. I will do a video demo of both soon….watch this space!!! Remember, a successful angler masters a range of techniques and is quick to change to the most suitable method for his/her position, the wind, the depth of water, the weather, etc.

Increase your chances

It stands to reason that the more flies you have on you leader the more chance you have of catching a fish, but be careful if you are new to having ‘droppers’, only start with a point fly and a single dropper about a foot or half a metre from the point. Master casting with the dropper and before you attempt to go on to 3 or even 4 droppers.

Dry fly and a nymph on a dropper is the tool of choice for most of the summer – using 2 flies doubles your chances!

• Early in the season, fish tend to be deeper, feeding on nymphs – give them a choice, because you might not know what’s happening today on the river bottom. Is it a caddis day, or a mayfly day? Put a pound each way with two different nymphs.

• Lures represent a big piece of protein, and when fish will take nothing else, or are feeding selectively, a big juicy lure fly (olive Woolly Bugger, Cats Whisker, Butt Monkey, Gold Head etc) may well gain their attention when all else fails.

When the “usual” method is not delivering results, experiment with different techniques. Buy a sinking line and swing a lure fly through the bottom of the pools at mid-day in mid-summer. You might be surprised…    

Perfect Location...but no fishing!!!!

Fly fishing hazards are every where as we all know, but the biggest hazard I encountered recently is taking all of my travel fly fishing gear away with me only to realise fishing is not allowed in the resort! I have just got back from a weeks holiday in Egypt, what a fantastic place, rich cultural history, wonderful people and unbelieviablly hot weather.

However, I didn’t check before I went away if I could fish or not, my thinking being that I am on a coastal resort with a private beach and I would be using barbless hooks, what can possibly go wrong? Well, we stayed in the resort of Sharm El Sheikh, a truely magical resort for diving and snorkeling as the fish are massive and abundant to say the least. I was swimming with 10+lb fish within 15 feet of the beach and they were the most cheeky fish I have ever come across. There were shoals of 2-3lb fish with brilliant colours and fantastic shaped fins and tails, to be honest, after I went snorkeling and diving in Sharm I didn’t want to catch any fish. I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t actually want to catch the fish. My reasoning was that the fish would not be any sport, they would fight for the fantastic Shipmans buzzers and Diawl Bach’s that I had specially tied in pearlescents and uv reflective materials, they would attack the flies and if I put 10 droppers on I would catch 10 fish every cast….is that fishing? The fish were basically tame!

So here I am, stood in 3 feet of crystal blue water that was no less than 25c with fish shoaling around me and I am not fishing, “you should have just cast a line”, I hear you cry, well, I took the sensible step of asking if i could fish off the beach and the man at receptionist nearly fainted (not a joke, he nearly fainted), when he composed himself, he told me that they have wardens patrolling and if you are caught fishing, you get all of your gear confiscated and fine £1000, oh and while your travel buddies are getting the cash together, they allow you a free stay in the local jail! So, you can easily understand the reason i didn’t fish at Sharm El Sheikh, but like I have said, I am not sure I would have fished even if I was allowed.

So the lesson here is that if you are going to go to a forgiegn country or a new location in your own country, you should always check the fishing bye laws and rules. I didnt specifically go on this trip to go fishing, it was a family holiday where I tried to escape for a bit of fishing so nothing lost.

Anemone Fish in Sharm El Sheikh

Dever Springs

Dever Springs is set in the Hampshire countryside, yet with easy access to the A303, they get visitors commuting from Cardiff and London on a regular basis. The lakes are crystal clear and are home to some huge fish, I had a fantastic days fishing at Dever Springs and would suggest anyone who get the chance to try it out, although if you are a beginner, you might want to speak to Neil about a lesson first. The River Dever runs through the fishery and is a fantastic addition to the fishing, you could not really ask for anything else when fly fishing. The fishery is great for, stalking, river fishing and all other method of fly fishing. 

Have a look at the videos of me fishing this fantastic fly fishery…….here

Dever Springs is situated beside the River Dever (a tributary of the legendary River Test), a big fish water where 20lbs-plus Rainbows and large Browns are taken each season. The Fishery comprises two spring fed lakes totaling six acres and a half mile stretch of the River Dever. The well established lakes are abounding with aquatic fly life, which includes an abundant Mayfly hatch in season.

These crystal clear waters enable discerning anglers to stalk exceptional fish. The minimum stocking size is 4lbs, with 6lbs 8oz being average at the moment. Every angler coming to Dever Springs has a very real chance of taking double-figure fish. The lakes are stocked each day with top quality trout, reared within the complex.

Anglers are welcome to look around some of the stock ponds where the fish are reared before stocking into the lakes.

Car parking is adjacent to the lodge where the ticket office/shop, gutting/weighing shed, vending machine and toilet facilities can be found.

The stocking of our hard fighting rainbows (present average of over 6lbs) will continue as always.  Look on the gallery page to see a selection of the bigger fish that get caught.