the scottish borders

we had an amazing few days last week in the Scottish Borders with some very hospitable locals who ensured we were on some of the most beautiful pieces of river I've ever seen.

look at the Scotland August 2008 album on the right to see what we got up to...

The lauder in the Scottish borders

a few hours on the neighbour's pond...

I snuck out for a few hours on my neighbour's pond. The weather was perfect for fishing a small stillwater: a bright sky, slight breeze and warm day. With all the rain recently the rowing boat took a while to empty using the rusty old sauce pan but it offered me a few minutes to watch the water.

There were a few unhurried rises, mainly along the fringes of the weed bed: the pond perimeter is almost completely weeded now with little opportunity to fish from the bank. Once on the water I noticed spent large white mayfly that must have emerged early in the morning, also there were quite a few large (#10) midge pupae emerging... I suspended a suitable black midge imitation beneath a large buoyant dry.

1 brown and 4 rainbows later I rowed in to the bank and went home... what a pleasure :-)

Bass fever intensifies

I've sought the advice of the experts, I think I am starting to get a good grounding for how the bass in the UK operate and what I need to do to catch them on fly (remember I've only been out once before where I got a wee schooly on a clouser).

I had a good chat with Austen Goldsmith of UKSaltwaterflies.com who was a huge help. Amongst a lot of advice, Austen also sent me a few of his killer bass patterns. I'll tie up a few more with the materials he uses (like the DNA FFF stuff which just blows me away) before I hit the water hopefully next week. Austen also suggested I buy "Hooked on Bass" by Alan Vaughan and Mike Ladle and focus especially on chapter 5 "shallow rocky shores". That chapter did it for me... I spent the next few hours on Google Earth searching out appropriate pieces of coastline. I reckon I have had my nose up against at least 100miles of coast this past few days via Google earth!


I'll let you know how I go on the water...

a few little sunday afternoon grayling

Jacques and I had a chilled out few hours looking for grayling on dries and small nymphs...

summer sea bass

I've only thrown a fly at a sea bass in the UK once, it was last summer in Chichester harbour and I got one small bass... the only fish my party got into that morning. Gale force winds set the tone for the morning. we fished from 5am to 12 noon, howling wind, no fish showing.

At the moment the weather is good in sunny Kent and I am getting pretty fired up about getting in the salt in the next few weeks to look for some bass... I need to research tides and locations, hopefully I'll be posting a few pictures of bass in hand here soon!

The Yarn Spider

Last summer I was looking for a quick to tie, highly buoyant dry fly that throws a large silhouette on the surface without being bulky. I looked at yarn strike indicator material and reasoned that it is light and bouyant enough to be the basis of a pattern, but what about legs for silhouette? Partridge parachute style would do surely?

If you were at the Spring show in March this year you may have seen me demo this pattern in various colours, it has also been featured in the new publication "Fly tyers of the world".

It takes less than 60 seconds to tie and is really easy. Remember to apply some flexament under the shank where the partridge is hackled around the yarn post to ensure it is protected against those little teeth on wild brownies. A light wire scud/emerger hook is best to keep the point below the surface where it will produce good hook up ratios on trout and especially grayling and yellowfish (for the South African readers) with their sub terminal mouths.

Well we threw the yarn Spider at some wily wild browns on a tributary of the Usk and they wouldn't leave it alone. With a bit of silicone gel flotant applied to the yarn this pattern floats all day after dozens of fish... give it a shot and let me know how you go...