Anglers and Danglers..... :-)

Just recently iv been lucky enouth to tag along with the fly fishing Guru and all round wrongen Lewis Hendrie iv been gaggin to get out using fly gear for bloody ages after being mentally ruined by Nick Hart and the gang watching them fly fish for trout and pike...... its something iv wanted to do in a long time but not having access to this stuff on a reg basis it was always something that never spawned! well Lewis rings me asking if id fancie joining him for a session i jumped at the chance to get out our first session was on one of my local small rivers for wild brownys and it was AMAZING the next session was some pure angling porn!Now i would call myself a sheer dangler when it came to this type of fishing, we fished little bug patterns in teams of twos or new zealand dropper under the rod tip on this STUNNING southwest tiny water....talk about jungle fishing i was beaming with smiles this was exactly the sort of stuff fishing dreams are made of, kinda takes you back to ya childhood waist deep in water, whats not to like! quoting a a Nick Hart comment "if theis style of fishing doesnt get your juices flowing your not a angler" soooooo true..... with the hepl of Lewis i soon got the flick and catapolt technique dialled and was gettin into fish, although Lewis was whippin me big time!

we had Grayling on the brain and after i had spooked and lost a few while Lewis consistantly caught is was my duty to star nailing some of these gorgeous "lady of the streams" and i soon got stuck into grayling! all of which were between a pound and 2lb which are awesome fighting weight for our ZERO weight fly rods..... yeh zero weights! truly stunning gear coupled with some tiny Sage reels this was amazing finesse gear just right for the job and a real pleasure to use. around every corner there was another pool or gully all crammed to the brim of grayling it was amazing to see and be able to fish water that i usually wouldnt get on!

the next session was my kind of thing.... i had told Lewis about some clonkin chub fishing on another southwest venue where i had recently beat my PB on lure caught Chubblys and we chatted about how on light fly gear it would be insane fishing, real hit and hold no holes barred fly fishing! when we pulled up a short walk to the venue i could see Lew's face coming to life he could instantly see the potential here...... everywhere you look in this river you are greeted with hundreds of chub from a pound to 7lb plus! theres also a huge head of big pike here too :-) we took two fly outfits a 2weight and a 3/4weight for the chub etc so we could play around with nympths on the lighter rod and whip out the frogs and mice patterns on the 4, i also had my trusty Sakura Mazzera 742ml and 4000 reel with a bag of tricks

I had a few casts in a small wier with the fly rod and managed a tiny 3/4lb chub instantly but i could see the Perch and bigger chub tucked right in under the wier in all the white water, so it wasnt long before my lure came out to play :-) i rigged a 3" kalin pepper pearly grub onto a offset hook unweighted and popped it above the wier to let it come doen over the wier into the white water..... and on the next 4 casts i nailed 2 perch to around a pound a 1.5lb chub and a 1lb wild browny! while we moved down the river i continued with the lure and found a small raft of weed on the other side and cast out to the clear water behind, let it drop and drift under and started my drift soon as i started to wind i could see the beats turnin and looking at the grub and a 3lb perch come hammering out but doesnt take! i was in pieces i wasnt expectin that! in the next swims down i can hear fish splashing and see small fish scattin from the water in all directions! thinkin it was the pike which normally hang out here i cast out only to see huge perch everywhere...... i couldnt believe my eyes! it wasnt long before the piking pisshead was into his first decent fish of the day! this plumb 2lb perch! well chuffed we carried on up river

we fished a good old stretch teaming with chub and perch where both me and Lewis nailed them on lure and fly we both saw chub over the magic 5lb mark and a few real biggys well over 6lb...... lewis was jumpin around at the thought of nailing these fish but lost every single one ha ha we headed to a really snaggy patch of the river where there is pubic acces and of coarse shopping trolleys, prams, bikes, traffic cones, beers cans Gotta love wild fishing ayyy! and Lewis shouts F%*$in hell look at that browny........ i knew this venue had beasts as i caught a 3lb 3oz wildy only a few weeks back on a surface lure aimed for chub! after about twenty casts snaggin a few times lewis was sure we spooked this fish but as we were pissin about and lewis was actually on the phone i sat down lookin on facbook and Lew shout "I GOT IT!" it couldnt of been a worse swim snags everywhere on a light fly rod it went mental! but we landed it! a beast of a wild browny!
It was getting late now and we headed back to the car fishing the good looking pools on the way back in hopes of one of these beast Chub..... it wasnt long before they came out to play...... i had the fly rod in hand this time with a chernobyl ant pattern on and BOOM up comes those big rubbery white lips it literally smashed me! i had to run the bank after it i had no control in this fast paced river...... but wow what fun! after 2mins of shoutin to lewis that i had one it burys its head deep into the cover, i could still feel it plunging deeper and deeper into the weed so lewis jumps in with the net to try and help out but i get that heart breaking feelin of slack line... the chub is gone :-( a good fish too so lewis says. Lewis had just been snapped off as well by a big 6lber on 5lb flurocarbon leader...... these fish actually abuse light gear! we finished the session with 11 chub and a couple nice trout plus the biggy and my decent perch. that was it game over home time. bring it on next session on here we are gaggin to hit it again. couple that with the 30 odd grayling and 20 odd trout to fly gear its been a awesome couple weeks :-)