Flies on the Towpath

Whenever the unthinkable happens and it actually looks like summer at this point in the year, I start to crave clear water and canal fishing. It's remarkable how quickly our beautiful rural cuts are dismissed as "unfishable" in the Westcountry. Sure, you might struggle with a pole rig. But that rich, abundant weed is absolutely teeming with life- and the rudd, my absolute summer favourite on the canals, will eat both the green stuff as well as the things hiding in it, not to mention the bug life hatching in and around the towpath. A dry or slow sinking fly can be presented in the slightest gap in the undergrowth.

On the Taunton to Bridgwater Canal, I must have walked six miles or so with Russ Hilton, who opted for free-lined bread in the weedy spots while I cast flies. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be mobile if you want to find the interesting spots and better fish here. A 10ft 3/4 weight rod, long handled net and fly vest are all I need to fish (and in fact the heaviest part by a mile is my Nikon camera plus lenses!).

It was Russ who made the quicker start using bread- although I missed two really positive takes from chub where I watched the line pull away before striking my Spider Sedge right out of their mouths. I really should learn to wait another split second! Not to worry though, because the beauty of this fishing is that there's always another chance a few yards on- and I was soon adding roach to the cute rudd I was getting on my wet flies:

Incidentally, when it comes to fly choice I still rely heavily on either my "Rudd Bugs" (basically soft hackled flies with buggy, loose dubbed bodies that sink really slowly) or the good old Black and Peacock. To cater for different conditions I tend to tie the favourites three ways: totally unweighted, with a glass bead or with a tiny gold bead. If there's a steady breeze or tow on the water, beaded flies offer better control. The tip of using lighter beads made of glass and other materials is something I borrowed from my friend urban fly angler Theo Pike. These sink slower than brass or tungsten, but still cut through surface movement well. After all, canals are changeable. The fish, especially roach, cannot always be persuaded to nick the fly in the top few inches and finding a steady tow is not uncommon at all. At other periods of the day, a small buzzer or bloodworm also worked for the roach.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was the capture of a silver bream (above) of around 6oz. These take a fly well, but are usually much smaller. It took a gold beaded spider, fairly well sunk down. It was a great day for visual fishing in fact. Winds were gentle and visibility improved greatly once the sun came out. Fish like rudd turn the usual "fish early and late" logic on its' head in fact; a sunny afternoon is an excellent time both to spot and tempt them on flies.
It was a day of top viewing pleasure in fact. We saw everything from tench and bream to a few pike. One of these jacks stole a rudd directly from Russ as he played it and we watched the thing sit there with jaws working and a tail sticking out of its' mouth! He also has this happy knack of catching a fish I've just missed. I'd had my eye on a vividly coloured golden rudd but managed to miss the take when it sucked my fly in. About two minutes later the swine had it on a piece of bread. Bah! (To give Russ his dues, he also had the best rudd of the day at around a pound and a quarter- which I'm sure you'll see soon on his "Tales From the Towpath" blog).

When it got too hot to play we also enjoyed the shade of one of the "pill boxes" dotted around. These were built as air raid shelters during WW2 I believe. Not exactly sure why the Luftwaffe would want to bomb the canal, but there you go. Our own raids continued in the sun, We both had plenty of takes and missed some other really chunky fish. For anyone keen to sample a day on the fly in these beautiful locations, I can offer guided days and half days which include a set of "canal special" flies to take home with you. Can't say fairer than that! I've yet to have a guest who didn't finish with several quality roach and rudd.

Flying West

Back to more active fishing this week. You can only contain me in a bivvy for so long before I get seriously restless. I did finally get into some carp at Darts Farm on another night session, but must have had three of the smallest fish in the lake. I couldn't wait to get back to some more impatient fishing, which started on the Bude Canal (above). This is a crazy little venue; every chance of a flounder amongst the roach. Or indeed a trout, and I had three on maggot or caster.

I waggler fished most of a short session, catching rudd steadily. With hindsight I should perhaps have spent longer down the track for the bream. It's not the prettiest or most sophisticated method, but a small method feeder was deadly. In fact it can be downright unfair- you can be sat there presenting the bait perfectly on a pole and fine tackle and yet next door someone is hauling fish out on a horrendous chunk of groundbait and 6lb hook length. There is a certain pleasure in watching the tip go crazy I suppose, and I landed a cracking bream and lost another two in perhaps 90 minutes of trying this, although pedalo warfare soon slowed things down. Not a bad catch though:

I've also been back on the trail of new waters, first up at St Tinney Farm, which has several of the sort of ponds that take you back to childhood- cute, leafy and stuffed with carp, roach and rudd. I took one look before reaching for the fly rod.

The water was hardly gin clear, so I went for a size 10 black and peacock. The rudd played ball from the off, and I also had some cat and mouse style fun with the carp. I had one suck in the fly without getting hooked, another keep nosing it for several yards and then, finally, a nice mirror bolting off. Just shows, you don't need chum mixers to lure carp. It takes a little more patience, but the fish of mature ponds know exactly what insects are:

I'm hoping to do more with St Tinney in fact (about 20 mins from Bude). There are lots of great little streams and stillwaters nearby as well as the coarse fish on site. Some nice rudd could also form some great guided trips on sunny afternoons. For today's mission, visitors Karl and son Callum Salmon (great fishy surname) were keen to learn to fly fish, so I took them to Simpson Valley to try a half day session. Well versed in coarse fishing techniques this was something entirely new to try.

Some anglers take a bit of practise, others are just naturally good with a fly rod. Callum was definitely one of the latter. I always like to start the process on a nice flat space without the distraction of fish, water and trees. After an hour or so of pointers on grass, he was already creating elegant loops on the lakes. Both our intrepid fly casters caught fish and hopefully caught the bug: