It was a glorious day in Devon
so Graham and I decided to travel to Crow Point off Braunton Burrows fly
fishing for bass. Those of you who have read previous articles will know I
struggled when I took Mark Everard out. Well, Graham is a far superior fly
fisherman to me, (it is his specialisation) and he was hauling out school bass
one after another, but I was struggling for a take. I could see the following
the fly and swirling away, but couldn’t feel anything, not even a twitch on the
line.. As the tackle and fly was similar, we tried to go through each phase to
find out why. Then Graham realised what the difference was. I was stripping with
my left hand, whilst Graham pulling in with a constant pull. Every time I
stopped moving the fly, the bass took but I didn't feel anything. When I changed
and retrieved in a constant smooth motion I started catching, having 6 to half
a pound or so. But Graham had about 50 of similar size. He had 8 double hook
ups as he was using a dropper whereas I use a single fly.
I did have one stroke of luck. As I put this bass into
a shallow rock pool to search for my camera for this picture (which took an age
as the tide had changed the scenery significantly and I struggled to spot it)
the incoming tide reached the pool and submerged my rod. I was fortunate to
spot about 10 yards into the sea. The tide really rips in there and with the
shallow angle, it was coming in at walking pace so didn’t take long to cover
the rod.
Although it was only knee deep as we withdrew, the
flow was such that I wouldn't have liked to be half an hour later with waist
deep water. I don't think I would have made it. You can never take the see for
granted.