I mentioned in a previous post I’m trying to get back into the fly fishing groove after going Esox mental over winter. Like most of my hobbies if I find a problem I’ll just throw money at it, buy new shit until it goes away. Or a different problem appears that becomes the new priority to spend money on. So verily I did go and buy myself a Loop LTS X3 9 foot 6 inch 4 weight rod (£200 down to £70 from Glasgow Angling), a Snowbee Onyx # 3/4 reel (£50 down to £29) and a WF4 John Norris Pro2 floater (£5.99!).
The reel is very good value at £29.99, £50 would have been too much in my opinion but that’s RRPs for you.
It comes with a neoprene case which is a nice touch. I bought a fiver’s worth of Leeda backing and set about getting it all spooled on, the bumf said the reel would take 50m of backing with a WF4. I couldn’t be bothered with the ‘reel on fly line then backing then reel off then reel on right way’ method so I took a guess then added a bit more for luck. I wasn’t far off. Then I stuck on a Roman Moser minicon trout loop. Forget any other braided loop, these are the absolute best I’ve ever used. The rod also looked promising, coming in a nice carry case and generally well put together. A quick waggle (‘cos that’s how we all test rods) showed that the tip stopped wiggling straight away when I stopped waggling. I once read that this meant your rod had good recovery or something. Next time you test a rod in a busy shop, do the waggle test, nod sagely, tighten your lips then semi-whisper ‘nice tip recovery’ and you are on your way to being a level 1 expert fly fisherman. Level 2 would entail a louder rendition of the aforementioned, followed by a lecture to anyone in earshot about how you can ‘put the backing knot through the tip ring EVERY cast even on a 6′ #1 weight’.
The line meanwhile seemed pretty good for £5.99 apart from the last 8 inches coiling round so once i’d attached my braided loop I hung a 3 ounce weight of the end overnight to straighten it all out.
I was hoping to get on the Aire this weekend, out Gargrave way but time was against me so I ended up on the Wharfe. The level wasn’t bad, maybe a bit above what I would have liked but certainly fishable.
River banks just do not look their best in Winter (unless there’s a really good hoar frost or snow on the ground) and it kinda made me wish I’d waited for Spring but I wanted a pop at some grayling. I put up the new outfit but wasn’t really able to test the action as I went straight into Czech nymphing which obviously isn’t loading the rod. Then again, the rod worked fine flicking out 3 heavy nymphs with only a few feet of line out so I guess the tip works well. The extra length felt good (phwoar) and seemed to give a bit more line control than shorter rods. However, as you can see in the video below I was having trouble keeping a tight line because of the blustery conditions, and maybe also not enough weight to my flies? Also please note I’m not left-handed!
When I did a little bit of wet fly down and across at the end of the day the long rod really came into its own for controlling a short-medium length of line by keeping as much off the water as possible.
There’s just one thing missing from this post and that’s a photo of a grayling, or an out-of-season trout, or even a chub! I didn’t get a single obvious bite for 4 hours of fishing. Never mind, lots of kit tested and enthusiasm renewed. All I can do to round out this post is show you a picture of the bullocks that harassed me as I tried to walk back through the fields. The standard cow-clearing arms-out schweee schweee method didn’t work so I had to walk through the middle of them. Fact remains that more British people have been killed by cows than ISIS. Probably.
Gah! The formatting looks out of kilter on mobile devices. This does not sit well with my Virgoan need for perfection!
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andy