Ritual And Tradition

Ritual And Tradition - By Alan Bowles

For many people the start of the new trout season means ritual and tradition. I know of one friend who always makes the long pilgrimage to Teifi pools and camps there awaiting the dawn to herald in the first fishing day of the year. For me the new season (albeit one month later in England) means the first time back on the syndicate water. Nothing remarkable about that admittedly but I have been fortunate enough to fish this small piece of stream for four seasons now and it is where I first started fly fishing on running water and caught my first wild brownie. Therefore to me this now represents tradition ,and to flout it would only incur the wrath of the fishing gods , calling upon storms, pestilence and whatever else they can lay their hands on to blight my new season. 

The  stream is just over a twenty minute car journey from my house, which considering I live  a (literal) good stones throw from the Sportfish shop in Theale isn't too shabby for my neck of the woods. In fact the first fish I ever caught was a Chub from the bridge next to Haywards farm and when I pull into the shop for "a few bits" it always reminds me how things have come full circle. How very different things were then and as a youngster with rod and freshly dug worm in hand I could never have envisaged the store and the lake that stand there today.
 

The first drive down is always fraught with a changing mix of blind optimism, anticipation and out and out curiosity. Curiosity in the sense (which every river angler will know) as to how the river will have changed. Running water is quite the most intoxicating of mother natures creations and anyone who seeks the aesthetically pleasing could do worse than seek it out. Over the winter a million unknown variants will have shaped what you thought you knew as well as your living room into something instantly familiar and yet somehow uncharted. Spring is a wonderful time to be out on the water and though the temperature is still cool and the watery residents are still sluggish from their wintry recess, you can't help but feel an underlying tension of life itself about to burst forth. It is a timeless spectacle and one can only feel humbled and inextricably linked to the very bones of the earth by it. It is with no small amount of eagerness that I will walk/run down the all too familiar path through the field, under the barbed wire, crossing at the farm pool and onwards to the bridges all the time scanning and noting every deviation from my minds last depiction. Every pool named and unnamed is met anew like an old acquaintance and reassessed to form a fresh cerebral painting.
   
This small stretch of water which at times looks as if it could be vaulted by a pygmy epitomises small stream fishing. A short rod of about 7 feet taking a 3-4 weight line and some flies are all that's required. Despite its small stature it contains some deceptively deep lies and many parts cannot be effectively fished without entering the river so chesties are also a must. If stealth could be sold then I would buy a ten gallon drum of it!! This type of fishing really does mean getting close to your quarry and time spent slowly creeping into position is seldom wasted, rivercraft really is everything and to ignore it would be extreme folly indeed. Seasonal hatches of Hawthorn,Grannom,Olive,Caenis and Mayfly (Danica) are all to be had here but oddly I have never noticed a prolific evening rise as some waters do. I myself have had success with many fly patterns including CDC and Elk, Para Adams, Olive "F" fly, Black Gnat, hawthorn and Grey Wullf for the Mayfly. As time progresses I am becoming more convinced that presentation and stealth are more important than obsessing over fly pattern but that (as with everything in fishing) is only a theory and as long as I am a fisherman I would be hesitant to use the word "fact". Despite the scientific aspects to fly fishing it often remains maddeningly indecipherable and who amongst us would cheerfully step out each fishing day already armed with the twin swords of certainty and foregone conclusion?? Early season usually sees me adopting nymph tactics and I have always had great success with the obvious but undisputed champions of the underwater world, The Gold bead hares ear and the Pheasant tail nymph but when the fish start to look skywards what fly fisherman would not reach for the dry fly as instinctively as a smoker would reach for his lighter.  

 Whilst it's true that as your fishing progresses you will range ever further afield I always will feel that in some way the season isn't complete without a wildie from where it all started and I shall therefore continue to doff my hat to superstition