Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

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Wagtail
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Wagtail »

This book is good if you are interested in trying for coarse fish on the fly

http://dgfishing.co.uk/product/flyfishi ... on-signed/
'The Chub is a very controversial fish. He has a strong army of supporters, but he has an almost equally strong army of detractors. The trouble is that the detractors do not know what they are talking about'. L. Vernon-Bates

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Tengisgol
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Tengisgol »

Wagtail wrote:This book is good if you are interested in trying for coarse fish on the fly

http://dgfishing.co.uk/product/flyfishi ... on-signed/
I have had my eye on that but not bought a copy but you've encouraged me to do so!

I found another couple of photos from that afternoon. But the background to it is worth telling. We were fishing a super-out-of-the-way lough that I had discovered when I was living in Ireland. There were no boats, it was too remote, so we took our canoe over on the roof. It rained and rained and rained. Every morning we took the boat off the car in the rain, sat in rain all day and then put the canoe back on the roof in the rain. For nine days.

We did catch rudd, big ones too, and one evening I had six two pounders which was incredible. But my goodness, everything was soaked and stinking and just disgusting.

On the last morning (due to get the ferry that afternoon) we took the canoe off the car and it stopped raining. An hour later the clouds went from grey to white. Patches of sky began to appear and then with only a couple of hours to go it turned into a blazing hot day with clear sky from east to west. The rudd just appeared, massive ones, it was like fishing on the flats for bonefish. Here are some photos, one of the most magical moments of my fishing life.

Image

Image
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AshbyCut
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by AshbyCut »

Oh ... my ... word !!!!!
"Beside the water I discovered (or maybe rediscovered) the quiet. The sort of quiet that allows one to be woven into the tapestry of nature instead of merely standing next to it." Estaban.

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Scott
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Scott »

Tengisgol wrote:
Wagtail wrote:This book is good if you are interested in trying for coarse fish on the fly

http://dgfishing.co.uk/product/flyfishi ... on-signed/
I have had my eye on that but not bought a copy but you've encouraged me to do so!

I found another couple of photos from that afternoon. But the background to it is worth telling. We were fishing a super-out-of-the-way lough that I had discovered when I was living in Ireland. There were no boats, it was too remote, so we took our canoe over on the roof. It rained and rained and rained. Every morning we took the boat off the car in the rain, sat in rain all day and then put the canoe back on the roof in the rain. For nine days.

We did catch rudd, big ones too, and one evening I had six two pounders which was incredible. But my goodness, everything was soaked and stinking and just disgusting.

On the last morning (due to get the ferry that afternoon) we took the canoe off the car and it stopped raining. An hour later the clouds went from grey to white. Patches of sky began to appear and then with only a couple of hours to go it turned into a blazing hot day with clear sky from east to west. The rudd just appeared, massive ones, it was like fishing on the flats for bonefish. Here are some photos, one of the most magical moments of my fishing life.

Image

Image
Simply amazing! What a great water. There's a tarn up here that has a good head of rudd apparently, got to go and find it one day, your post is spurring me on! :Hat:

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N9nty
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by N9nty »

I have fished the River Lugg near Hereford with a fly and caught quite a few chub, the real quarry was trout but you catch about 15 chub for every trout. Most enjoyable.

During the drought a few years back I was walking along the Wye at Ross on a very hot,sunny day, the river was very low with almost no flow when my attention was drawn to large numbers of rising fish. I carefully looked into the water and expected to see chub but to my amazement the fish rising were barbel up to about 6lb, they were taking what looked like small white caterpillars which were floating on the surface. I watched them for several minutes until some children arrived and began throwing sticks into the water for their dog. To take the caterpillars they had to push their noses right out of the water.

A barbel on the fly, now that would be something worth writing about.

John
The older I get the better I was.

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Phil Arnott
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Phil Arnott »

I stayed at the Caer Beris Hotel at Builth Wells some years back as I wanted to catch a shad. The owner Peter Smith is an angler and he told me that they deliberately fly fish for barbel. I seem to remember the method was to twitch a "Booby" type fly along the bottom.

I think you would be extremely lucky to take one on the surface.

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Scott
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Scott »

There's actually a great piece in John Bailey's '50 Fish to Catch Before You Die' about dry-fly fishing for barbel in Spain, well worth a read, it's a really good book... :Hat:

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Santiago
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Santiago »

A little known traditional way to catch coarse fish on the flie, on rivers, is to trot using a float just a few feet up from a dry flie, and a trotting rod etc. LA Parker raves about this method that he employed with great success in the 1940's on the Hampshire Avon. And of course it offers great advantages compared to using fly line, you can position the flie right under over hanging trees where all the big chub hide and you don't spook the fish with all that thrashing of the water into a foam!
"....he felt the gentle touch on the line and he was happy"

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Tengisgol
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Tengisgol »

Phil Arnott wrote:I stayed at the Caer Beris Hotel at Builth Wells some years back as I wanted to catch a shad. The owner Peter Smith is an angler and he told me that they deliberately fly fish for barbel. I seem to remember the method was to twitch a "Booby" type fly along the bottom.

I think you would be extremely lucky to take one on the surface.
With apologies for hogging this thread but I found some slides a few weeks ago and one is, I think, quite an amazing shot. This was a few years ago, again on the Wye, where we had found a group of barbel that had probably never been fished for. It was May-time and the barbel were behaving in the most natural fearless way. They were like a group of dolphins, rolling over each other in the upper most layers of the warm fast water. A hatch was on of those big white mayfly that you find on the Wye and the barbel were poking their noses out and sipping them in as they came down. They take a fly off the surface just like a grayling. I managed to get this shot!

Image

We only had 4 weight fly rods in hand for trout, with light tippets. I must say I was tempted but it would have been a ridiculous thing to do (and it was the closed season) so I promise that my fly was quickly withdrawn! I am sure that it would have been like shelling peas if I had had a seven weight rod and eight pound tippet, so it could be done in the right circumstances.

Image

We have however caught them on the fly since, here's my buddy with a small one.

Image
Where the willows meet the water...

https://sites.google.com/site/tengisgol/

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Duebel
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Re: Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish

Post by Duebel »

Santiago wrote:A little known traditional way to catch coarse fish on the flie, on rivers, is to trot using a float just a few feet up from a dry flie, and a trotting rod etc. LA Parker raves about this method that he employed with great success in the 1940's on the Hampshire Avon. And of course it offers great advantages compared to using fly line, you can position the flie right under over hanging trees where all the big chub hide and you don't spook the fish with all that thrashing of the water into a foam!
There is an interesting thread somewhere on the TFF covering this method.
Trotting nymphs under a float seems to be a traditional technique in Switzerland.
I'll give it a go in the nearer future and will tell you if I'm lucky.

Great pictures, Tengisgol!

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