Well aye will i go fishing

2009-11-24T11:49:00.001Z

Disappointments but good fun

Another weekends fishing brought me to OGDEN reservoir in Lancashire. It wasn't really the nicest of conditions windy, cold and raining but what can you expect for Lancashire mid November.

Pike fishing was the order of the day and in attendance was Micho the length, Kojak and for the last 1hr fellow blogger on wellayewilligofishing Mr Kaps.

I'm not going to go into great details about all the different lures I was using as I only had 2 (not that great for a full days fishing) and I'll also not go into great detail about all the fish I spotted as I only spotted a few the best been a pike of about 15lb jumping 1ft in the air, very funny to see.

I did have one moment of pure adrenaline pumping action that lasted for about 10 seconds (no this wasn't with my girlfriend), after spotting a perfect hiding place for the pike and pulling off probably one of my best casts I held my reel under my right arm I preceded to strip the lure back as fast as I possibly could. BANG!! SMASH!! Pike on!! The reel screamed for about 5 seconds and the pike flung herself out of the water crashing back down! NO PIKE ON ANYMORE!!

This was probably my best piece of fishing, spotting the hiding place, casting to the exact spot I wanted, stripping the lure back correct and the result was pike on. When I look back on it I wasn’t prepared, I didn't have wire trace on and I only had 10lb leader not really good enough when fly fishing for pike and you can be certain that it won't be happening again.

I like to blog my disappointment because if I didn’t there would be nothing to write and hopefully I can come back to it and see how I've improved! The last 4 big fish I've had on the fly haven't been landed and it's starting to piss me of a little… One thing though, I wont be giving in!! I LOVE FLY FISHING ME LIKE.

Sueness McNooness

Ps….Good luck Gav with the operation on the shoulder, hopefully you'll be back in action after the new year, that’s if you haven't got MRSA!! DOYLE

Genocide on river Tees

2009-11-05T17:01:00.002Z

Having been signed off work for a few weeks for a broken collar bone I thought I'd take a walk down to the Tees barrage to see if I could spot any salmon trying (and most likely failing) to get up the fish pass. When I arrived the scene was nothing less than disturbing.

In the 2 hours that I sat by the river I must have seen at least 15 salmon being slaughtered by the 5 seals patrolling that area, and that was only on the strech directly in front of me. The 8 cormorants mopped up the smaller fish that had the same problem. Other people walking down the river said the same thing was happening all the way down to the estuary. 25 fish went through the pass that day, and I saw 15 getting eaten in 2 hours on an 1/8 mile stretch, when the same thing is happening on the 10-12 miles to the estuary. That must mean that literally hundreds and hundreds are being killed daily, while 25 make it up the pass.

I could see fish moving slowly along the margins trying to keep out the way until they the tide rose when they might have a better chance of making it up. Some of them had clearly been bitten, with some of them having seal mouth sized chunks missing while they limped along slowly, surely to be picked off before long.

Why its going to take the EA another 3-4 years (after already having 14) to figure out what you can tell within 5 minutes is beyond me. People who had no interest in fish found the mass extermination uneasy to watch, stopping initially to watch what they thought was nature taking its course, only to see fish after fish, some of them easily over 15lb, being eaten alive, while struggling to the last. I went down 3 days in a row and the same was happening every day. The fact that so many fish are still coming back each year is testament to how well the rivers tributaries serve as spawning grounds for the few lucky ones.

Something needs to be done.

Petitions have been signed, and letters have no doubt already been written but it looks like it'll take a lot more effort before the message gets through. We'll be writing some letters, to the EA, British Waterways (who operate the barrage) and to wildlife and angling publications. If you care yourself then do the same!

Not tight line, or even great line!! We're talking straight lines!!

2009-10-07T12:19:00.003+01:00

Word is coming though from various news reports that Gav Kaps, respected author of WELLAYEWILLIGOFISHING has had a little moped accident while on holiday in Turkey!! We don't know if he's hurt himself (we hope he has) but the chances are he was probably pissed or hungover at the time so i'm sure it didn’t hurt to much.

In my eyes he deserves all the pain he's going through, and I say this for 2 reason.

1, Leaving his fishing partner with no waders for 2 weeks (my fault for getting drunk and not picking them up but I'm still going to blame it on him)

2, Just for having the accident in the first place and the reasult of this being a broken collar bone (now confirmed), I'm not sure how bad it is yet but i'm guessing a planned trip to the lakes in 2 weeks is going to be off!! Selfish

Na joking aside!!

Me and all the trout and salmon wish you a very speedy recovery! The trout are missing taking the piss out of you.

I will just have to go out on my own and catch double the normal amount of fish in your honour, this will still mean coming back with none!

Get Well…..and TIGHT LINES!!!

Ullswater/Angle Tarn

2009-09-15T20:19:00.036+01:00

The hot rod was packed and juiced up so we could get on our way straight from work. Most of the day was spent reading forums and studying multimap (all on our breaks of course).

I picked Ste up after work and we were on our way making good time. That was until we hit traffic. We amused ourselves during the otherwise tedious 45 minutes by celebrating the magnificence of the vehicle in which we travelled with the people in the nearby cars, endless fun.

I must at this point explain that neither of us have a car and that our

expeditions so far have been facilitated by the use of my girlfriends

battered 1.3 litre bubblegum pink honda jazz (nice one leanne!).

After a quick wing mirror repair stop at Forton services we were back on

route to arrive at Ullswater for about 8pm.

We found a suitable spot on the northern bank of Ullswater and knocked up the stovies which were quickly washed down with a colossal bottle of morrisons dry cider.

When we awoke the mist over the water was so thick you could hardly see 20 meters and it shone painfully bright, with the sun burning through from a cloudless sky. It took about an hour to clear and I got this nice shot just as it was brightening up into pleasant day we had hoped for.

We both had a go with some small spiders and PTN's for no reason other than

that they were small, and that we'd just bought them.

We fished a couple of hours which proved futile as the only ripples in the otherwise glassy water were the ones created by our shoddy casts.

After packing up and parking in Patterdale we began to tackle the ascent

towards the reason we'd made the journey up from Manchester. Angle Tarn.

The path up is steep and rocky, needless to say we had a difficult time making our way up there with our fully loaded rucksacks. At least

we'd splashed out on a bottle of whiskey between us instead of the usual 3

litres of fermented apple. Who'd have thought that we'd be wishing for

clouds and wind after the shit summer we've had? The blazing sun punished us all the way up, all we could think about was the cold water that would greet us upon arrival.

After about 1 1/2 hours gruelling climb the tarn was in sight, and what a

sight it was, how lucky are we that this is going to be our home for the

rest of the weekend!? Shame we found it so late in the season really.

As we

approached it our thoughts turned away from 'i'm definitely jumping in as

soon as we get there' to 'can't waste time, must fish immediately'.

We had considered fishing a duo but both opted for single flies to begin with to try and keep the new tapered leaders intact for more than one cast.

We had a look around, and noticed that there wasn't much in the way of airborne insects, which we put down to the time of day (early afternoon).

So, both digging deep into our vast knowledge of entomology I went for a Diawl Bach, because someone told me once that its a good idea to stick one on if you've got no idea what to do (used it regularly since then). Ste opted for an alexandra because he heard that it was at one time banned at various fisheries.

We fished hard without a pull, nothing to worry about though, the evening

rise will undoubtably bring some results... As the sun neared the horizon

we found ourselves surrounded by insects, not least midges. Where's the Avon?

Not in either of our bags anyway.

The fish were there but just weren't hungry, well that’s a slight lie as

they we're eating everything in sight, bar our flies, and we chucked a lot

of flies at them! Gav did get a take and thought he was in but it didn’t last long, as soon as it was on it dived down into the weed beds at the shallow end placed his hook carefully on a nice solid snag from which it would never be removed, poor craic from the fish I reckon.

I did miss a take, well I think I did cause I don’t really know what that means, I was pulling my fly along the surface when a fish came out to take it but missed it, why did it not take it? This is the second time it's happened now... poor.

We've got pretty used to the feeling of blanking but it always leaves a

slight disappointment in both of us. This disappointment quickly

disappeared when the sun and Angle Tarn produced the most stunning sunset, followed by an exact reflection of the stars and space above. The mirror like surface produced the illusion that we were casting into infinite space and made the tarn look like a vast bottomless pit, dotted with shimmering white lights from distances difficult to comprehend. We've never seen anything like it.

We realised it was time to put the rods down, roll a smoke, open the whisky and enjoy the immense beauty of this phenomenon we were lucky enough to observe.

Sunday was a new day and the eager anticipation was back, Gav required a couple of wake up calls, a brew, a bacon sandwich, and some paracetamol before he could start contemplating tactics (this has become standard).

As said in our introduction to this blog, this weekend was going to be about hard fishing, about as hard as Duncan Ferguson. Well maybe if you put Duncan Ferguson and Roy Keane together that would be a better reflection.

We fished well hard, chucking all manner of creations all over the tarn.

The trout were there, we could see them rising, even ocasionally leaping right out the water. The casting had got better, our flies were even

turning over and although the wind can take some credit for that, they were still landing properly. WHY DO THEY NOT TAKE OUR FLIES?

We retired for a spot of lunch and some more brews made from the tarn water and discussed the afternoon tactics, not that there was much to discuss as we could now only fish one side of the tarn due to the wind picking up and we'd tried al the flies we had. With admittedly dampened spirits we went back to the water determined not to blank.

After another dour couple of hours fishing expectations were seriously low.

Shouting over to Gav from the part of the tarn I was fishing ' let's fook

it off and go for a walk up the pikes and take in the views before we have

to pack up '. His response was that he wanted to try half an hour fishing

into the wind at the other end before we packed up. Fair do's, we walked

down to the shallower end which we'd been ignoring since the wind picked

up. By this point I'd cast my last fly for the weekend and was what we call

'DONE RIGHT IN', so I sat it out.

I swapped over to an intermediate and out of pure desperation I tied on a

horrible looking multicloured lure that I'd refrained from using all

weekend. I'd tried everything else and needed something heavy enough to fly against the wind, instead of landing behind me (again). I thought I'd go for the 'over the shoulder' that I'd seen demonstrated on Tight Lines earlier in the season, the last thing i needed was a size 8(?) hook lodged in my face.

I was sitting back and watching Gav cast his line, facing away from the

water, thinking about how much of a good time I'd had even though I hadn't caught anything when Gav shouted 'I'M IN!'. Fook off I thought, that jokes been done too many times now, but when I looked up sure enough there was a nice bend in the rod that suggested he wasn't as full of shite as I'd thought. At last a fish was landed at the 11th hour, after a short but spirited fight. He'd done it, caught himself a nice trout around the 1/2 pound mark, I was buzzing myself but I'm sure it was much better

for Gav.

We'd already agreed we'd be able to take a fish each for supper without damaging the stocks so there was no hesitation in chapping the little fella after a quick photo.

The day was over for me (tired, in need of fresh water, and no intermediate line or lures!). Gav with his renewed hope of catching fish carried on (without success) while I took a walk up to the top of the pikes to check the view out and take a couple of photos.

I'm still plugging away on this picture but you cant really make me out.

The person who finds me wins a fly fishing lesson from both of us

(sponsored by the animal liberation front).

When I got back down we packed up and set about the descent down to the car and ultimately back to reality.

30 or so hours earlier we'd been walking up talking about the prospects and imagining how buzzing we'd be on the way down after a successful weekends fishing.

The only difference was that we didn't have as many successes as we'd hoped. We were still buzzing, it was still probably the most enjoyable weekend away this year.

Everything that goes along with a trip like this is what makes it. To experience the solitude and take in the surrounding landscape and wild life was the ultimate privilege.

Landed fish are just a bonus!

Introduction and itinerary for the weekend 11/09/09 - 13/09/09

2009-09-10T13:21:00.000+01:00

When we started out fly fishing at the start of the year we had all intentions of writing a blog documenting our scores, successes and and glory. It didn't take long to realise that it would be a complete waste of time as we didn't actually have any successes to write about.

You might think that things have changed and thats why we've decided to start this blog.

What we actually thought is, if we start a blog, documenting what actually happens, then the people who do know what they're doing might feel compelled to put us right.
We figured that seen as we go to some pretty amazing places then we should get some interest from people who can look at the pictures and just imagine the results had they been fishing, so we should get some interest for that reason alone...
Failed missions so far include Ullswater, Haweswater, Loch Awe (twice), Loch Earn, Loch Lochy, Loch Tummel, Stocks, Leighton as well as most nights on the goyt/mersey/tame, amongst others. I don't mean we've blanked every time, sometimes we have the odd success, its just a rarity.

In spite of this, one thing you can bank on, is that when I ring ste and ask the question, his response will always be the same:

'Well aye will I go fishing'

Hopefully this is going to be the weekend that will bring us the results we've looking for since we started fishing, probably for the first time this season everything looks to be on our side, weather conditions look good, water levels should be right, confidence levels are high and new flies have been ordered, all in all this should produce some cracking sport........ But thinking back to Loch Awe 2 weeks ago things never seem to work out like the romanticised idea you have in your head. Isn't it amazing how much better your casting is in your head when you picture how things are gonna go at the weekend? I've got no problem landing a size 22 F-Fly in a gap the size of a 2 pence piece at 22 yards me like.

Our first stop on Friday night is Ullswater, hopefully we'll get there in time for the evening rise, if not, all will not be lost; this is just a pit stop.

The main event will be taking place at Angle Tarn (bottom pic). We found this place through the brilliant angling for something blog online (wheres the updates!?). Beautiful scenery, nice walk and a better than average stamp of trout than the other tarns (hopefully anyway!). We'll be fishing this as hard as we can Saturday evening and Sunday morning, probably about as hard as Duncan Ferguson, and we'll be happy if we get one each!

We'll be finishing off Sunday in the pub with a sore arm and a couple of smokes after a quick blast on Brotherswater. Hopefully we'll be back with a cracking report and some pics for your entertainment, don't hold your breath though.

Tight Lines

Not tight lines but great lines

2009-09-09T10:55:00.001+01:00

I will never have another girlfriend as I will never love her as much as i love fishing. RALPH JOHNSTON 2009