) and then Thursday just came and went

Well, things didn’t go as planned; firstly, Geoff had a late night at work on Tuesday, secondly I was asked to go to a meeting in Bristol on Wednesday (it was about a new way of accessing the world wide web without a computer!) and then Thursday just came and went. I did tie a few flies at my own desk – but didn’t stick to my plans. So much for working things out in advance!It did occur to me that I am assuming that every reader is familiar with the flies I am discussing. For those of you new to fly-fishing, I ought to explain some of the flies that I wrote about, as they will be exactly the ones that I will start this season with. So let me give you a run down of my early season trips from last year – and hope that this year will follow in a similar vein.I started the season on Chew Valley, from a boat with “Biker” – John Humphries. It was remarkably mild, but we still felt that in the cool of the early morning we should fish from anchor to start with and with sinking lines, I used a Wet Cell 2. The team of flies that I opted for was a fairly “standard” set for Chew. On the point, I had a J.C.V., which is a jungle-cock viva. All of my flies are tied to international rules which allows for hooks only up to 5/8ths of an inch long (generally that will mean a maximum of a size 10 standard shank) and the dressing may not exceed 15/16ths of an inch. I do not use any leaded flies apart from when I fish rivers.On the middle dropper I used a black superglue buzzer and on the top I used a diawl bach. The superglue range of flies have been around for a few seasons now, but represent a group of modern style tyings which are fairly accurate imitations of the creature that they are set to imitate. They are remarkably thin flies, kept that way so that they cut through the water quickly and look like the thin pupae that are present in the water. Early season buzzers are best kept dark, with black being just about best.The diawl bach is a Welsh fly – a very old pattern, one that is a really good general representation of lots of different aquatic creatures. It is tied with peacock herl and a few natural red game feather fibres. A variety of ribbing styles livens this fly up, but the basic pattern has a simple thin copper or gold wire rib. I started the season fishing in water of about ten to twelve feet deep. Within the first hour we had three fish in the boat – each to a different fly, which can often be the case at this time of year when the fish are not so preoccupied in their feeding as they will be later in the season. We soon worked out that the fish seemed to want the flies fished slowly and smoothly. The jerky type of retrieve, which some anglers favour, would not work for us. We tried a few different spots and caught a few more fish, though it was only when we moved over behind the island, where in the relative shelter the temperature seemed a few degrees warmer, that we decided that drifting would be a better option. On our first drift there I caught four fish – all to the J.C.V. and one of the trout took the fly the moment that it landed – proof indeed that the fish were not very deep. Biker caught steadily and we left the water late afternoon to have a celebratory drink at the Chew Stoke Inn on our way home. A good way to start a new season! Plenty of fish caught and they were surprisingly high in the water, all suggesting that we should be able to look forward to a good season ahead.You could do a lot worse than to get a good stock of the above flies in your box for the early season, but these three in particular can be used right the way through the season.I will be off to our Bristol Reservoirs Association members’ auction this week, just to check out any bargains on offer. I’ll get a few of those flies tied too!Tight lines,

Martin Cottis