How typical it is that life tends to get hectic just when you want to fish! Hot as hell and busy as hell don't sit too nicely together in my book. Still, squeezing in a few stolen hours where possible, I've managed to get back on the rivers, this time the Culm at Champerhayes, Devon. A "Westcountry Angling Passport" beat, this place is beautiful at the moment. We were hoping for mayfly, but saw precicely ONE lonely sample in the whole of a scorching hot afternoon. Things certainly took a while to wake up, and I spent most of the session shadowing Ben Garnett with my camera- with amazing light, green and lush scenery and mating damsel flies there was plenty to focus on while the fishing was slow. The fish did finally wake up though, with the best action in the heat coming from the pacier water. I stole Ben's rod to take one on a dry, whilst he quickly grabbed it back to tame a few welcome trout and chub, including a lovely foot long brownie:
So, some sunny sport, but I didn't get to field test my new tinkerings with Mayfly patterns- in particular I'm working on a pattern with a fly line body and deerhair wing. The idea is to make something not only pretty, but pretty indestructible! I'm praying that it won't be kept in the fly box till next May- we'll have to see.
Otherwise, an afternoon at Colliford Lake provided a pleasant afternoon for a party of three Garnetts, with five fish between us. I'm feeling smug because mine was the best, at around the pound mark, taken on a zulu. Just the ticket really- a scenic place, loads of space and a proper challenge for fans of wild settings. Photographer Frazer McBain continues to make me drool with his current crop of images for this grand, 900 acre lake:
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