Wickham's Is A Winner

Fancy That? Wickham's Is A Winner - By Clive Rounce

Fitting in an evening session after work, I drive through the rolling Lincolnshire Wolds with bright sun illuminating the yellow oilseed rape in the fields. The clouds are building rapidly in number but I suspect that the trout will be lying a few feet down. Having just started fly tying, I’ve set out to CATCH fish on my own flies this season (see “Why This Season Will Be Special”). I plan to start with a black buzzer which I will allow to sink before starting a very slow figure-of-eight retrieve. Just a few minutes later, I’m descending the track into the valley and there are shafts of sunlight ahead piercing the cloud cover through the only remaining break. The lake comes into view and I register the scene: flat calm, a solitary fly fisher and a few tell-tale rings betraying the presence of surface-feeding trout. Joy of joys, it’s nearly perfect: totally overcast now and pleasantly warm with fish feeding – all that is missing is a light ripple to disguise my intervention. My approach must be delicate and presentation of the flies – my own home-tied patterns – will have to be good. My original plan is already changing. As I sign in at the hut, the logbook tells me that fish have been caught today on Buzzers, Montanas, Black Pennels and Cat’s Whiskers. It’s always useful to know which flies have been working but there’s a wide range here to choose from. Fly fishing is largely an exercise in problem-solving and you need all the clues you can get. Where are the fish? What are they feeding on? Which method will work today?

I tackle up at the side of the lake, keeping well back and trying to glean as much information as possible, forcing myself not to rush in my excitement. How many times have I missed a ring whilst threading the fly line, only realising when I begin to cast. More haste; less speed. The rise forms are mixed: some fish ‘head-and-tail’; others swirl, occasionally with a splash; some gently kiss the surface. There are tiny white caenis flies in the air and I spot a few small brownish midges. Later in the season I’d expect to see sedges dancing above the marginal reeds, but their time has not yet come.

I decide to start with a simple black buzzer – black floss body with silver tinsel rib and a peacock herl thorax – fished just under the surface. I make my first casts short and along the margins, then further out where I can see the fish rising. On a stillwater, of course, the centre of the rings stays at the point where the fish broke the surface and the fish moves on. It’s hard to tell which way individual fish are moving so I guess and try casting a little to one side of a rise form, immediately beginning a slow figure-of-eight retrieve. Fifteen minutes into the session and no takes, I decide to change the fly for a PTN. I remember a similar evening when a pearly-backed PTN did the trick. When to change your fly is always a dilemma. You can never know what would have happened if you had persevered with the original one. And in the absence of an experimental control, you can’t be sure if you’ve made the best choice. Still, when I know that I’ve put my fly amongst the fish and I’m pretty sure some must have seen it, I’d rather be proactive and try something different if I’m not catching. There’s no interest in the PTN, and I’m not confident that this is the right approach. Confidence matters; I fish better when I really believe that any moment I’m going to get a take. On goes the Black Pennel. No interest; this pattern has worked best for me when retrieved through a wind –blown ripple. I look again and think that most of the trout are taking adult flies on the surface, so I want to try a dry fly. The aim this season is to catch fish on home-tied flies and the only dry fly that I’ve made is a Wingless Wickham’s Fancy. It’s part of a sequence in a book by Peter Cockwill, teaching different techniques, the palmer-hackled wingless, a wet winged fly and then a dry winged version. I’ve not tackled the latter yet, so on goes the wingless with an application of floatant and the last few feet of the leader degreased. It sits nicely in the surface film, not riding high, but staying afloat and creating a pleasing wake when twitched. After a few casts towards rising fish and a heart-stopping surge right behind the fly, I flick it out again just to the left of a swirl. I tweak the fly as it lands… it disappears immediately in a boil of water and I instinctively lift the rod. The tip thumps down and shudders – the fish is on!

As I apply side strain to keep the trout out of the marginal weed beds, I’m grinning widely; this is my first fish on a self-tied pattern and I’m delighted as it slides over the rim of the net. It’s 20” from nose to full tail (estimated at about 3lb); my Wickham’s is lodged in the scissors and it’s made my day. Who would have thought that the first fish I’d catch on one of my own flies would fall to a dry?

The Wickham’s is a fly with pedigree. Designed by Dr. T C Wickham in the 1880’s, a man connected to the Houghton Fishing Club on the Test (apparently disputed by others with the same name), it suggests the red spinner. Is also said to be good when fish are feeding on sedge, brown midge or shrimps and some say it’s the only fly trout will take when they are smutting – that is taking tiny insects in the surface film. Perhaps that’s what is happening today. One thing you can never do is to ask the trout what he took the fly to be! So you can never really prove your thinking in choosing a particular pattern. The silver body of the Wickham’s may have acted as an attractor; or perhaps reflected the natural colour of its surroundings. The palmered hackle might produce an alluring footprint from a trout’s-eye viewpoint or did it create a disturbance to induce the take? No matter – it worked. John Gierach (my favourite fishing author) suggests that you need to catch three fish on a given method and pattern before you can say that you’ve cracked the conditions. After that you can stop counting. I’m not going to argue with that, but today I’ve got something else in mind.

I’ve disturbed this area of the lake and I can see more fish rising in a bay on the other side. I’m alone now as the light fades and I decide to walk around the lake. My fly looks a bit be-draggled and I have something else I want to try.

I have a fly designed by my 12 year old daughter who took an interest in my first attempts at fly tying. It’s a lure with a yellow chenille body, silver rib and olive marabou wing. As I walk around the narrow end of the water and cross a bridge where the stream enters, a fish moves and catches my attention. I quickly strip off some line from the reel and send the ‘Canary’ across the water. As it lands close to the fish, I strip back a yard of line and am rewarded with a sharp pluck – it’s on! A short and one-sided tussle ends with a small bemused rainbow of about a pound coming to the net. Amazing – the Canary has scored! I imagine my daughter’s face when I tell her and smile broadly.

I have less than an hour before darkness falls so I try with a small dry fly (not one of my own) to tempt the fish rising in the bay. My guess is that they are feeding exclusively on caenis now and I can’t create any interest in my artificial. The light is fading now and I have one last idea. I tie on my wet Winged Wickham’s and cast amongst the ripples, retrieving it steadily just below the surface. I’m down to the last few casts, when I feel a sudden resistance and the rod kicks down – I’m into fish number three. Perhaps this one took the fly to be an early sedge. I’ll never know, but what I do know is that I’ve caught three trout on three different home-tied flies – a wet fly, a dry fly and a lure.

In my first trip, I’ve already fulfilled three out of four objectives, much more quickly than I’d expected. I just need to catch a trout on a home-made nymph now – and I will pin my hope on a buzzer, PTN, GRHE or perhaps a Diawl Bach. So what have I learnt? I wanted to find out if I could tie flies that were good enough to catch a trout and how that compared to using bought flies. Well, it is very rewarding and does bring an added sense of achievement. I had a great evening and still smile when I think about it. But more than that, I’ve realised that when you start fly tying, you embark on a fascinating and endless journey, where the pleasure is as much in the travelling as in reaching a milestone. I’m already thinking about how to change and improve my flies. How better to suggest the naturals, whether flies in smaller sizes would work better. And, especially, how having the ability to design and change patterns could help to solve fishing problems or cope with particular conditions in the future. All of that will challenge me to improve my tying skills and I’m glad that I’ve started.