in the way of a contrast

However in this article, l want to concentrate on just one aspect of fly fishing, that is catching deep water wild brown trout from large reservoirs or lakes. I hope to show how I, with my coarse fishing friends, transferred knowledge from coarse fishing into this specialist form of fly fishing. Certainly not ultra purist material but tactics that have really worked accounting for good catches of big browns and incidentally the World Record Fly caught pike. Yes, the two species are connected – read on to find out more.When I started fly fishing back in 1966 many fly fishermen were refugees from the coarse close season. They would fly fish from April to mid June,when they hung up their fly rods to return to coarse fishing for the start of the new season. Some of these refugees, myself included, got hooked on the sport and continued to fish on to become experienced fly anglers.By the early eighties, l had over 15 years fly fishing experience and moved on to the Queen Mother reservoir at Datchet. This man made reservoir was over 400 acres with depths of up to 90ft. The banks were very steep sloping so that just a few boat lengths out you were in over 30ft of water. Initially it was a boat only venue with pontoons being introduced for bank fishing several years later. Years before opening up to the public it had been stocked with thousands of figerling browns and rainbows which were topped up with its regular stocking of rainbows averaging just over a pound. These fish were active feeders often falling to surface and subsurface tactics with both lures and nymphs. Traditional loch styles were also producing more than their fair share of rainbows but no browns showed. Had they all fallen prey to cormorants? We doubted it, as it was illogical to presume that these birds had selectively eaten all the brownies leaving the rainbows After the water had been open a few seasons, anglers started to fish deeper and deeper with high density lines, making some remarkable catches of large rainbows and the odd brownie. One day, l moored up on one of the valve towers for lunch. I made a long cast and played out a lot of line to let my high density shooting head sink where it had landed, rather than penduluming under the boat. I had eaten my sandwiches and had a nice cup of coffee before retrieving. My retrieve was slow with a few little jerks. I had not recovered more than 4 yards before the rod locked up – I was into a good fish. The fish fought more like a barbel rather than a trout. It really hugged the bottom in nearly 90ft of water and it proved very difficult to force the fish to leave the bottom. It was a long hard plodding struggle which made me realise my tackle was under gunned for the task. Slowly but surely, l gained line to eventually net a cracking brown of 51b 9oz. Although I tried to repeat this success, l caught no more browns that day. Instead I had two over wintered rainbows to just over 41b.When I got the fish home, l gutted them to find pope and a few snails in all of them. It was obvious that this near relative of the perch was their main food. Although the reservoir contained other coarse fish, none ever turned up in the stomach of any brown trout that I ever gutted. It was the same old story every time, they were full of pope. Perhaps the other coarse fish did not go down to depths of 90ft. This also raised an interesting point, as pope have even sharper, more prickly fins than perch. In my experience of coarse fishing only pike take pope of this size. This raised another interesting point – were these cannibal trout closer to pike in their feeding than traditional trout? I remember discussing this with Lee Kitchen, Mike Bewick and Pete Thompsett in the bar at the reservoir. We all agreed that pope were the key and we needed to match the prey rather than match the hatch. Green could be the colour to use to match the pope. Lee,who is now a professional fly tier, got to work on some pope-like lures. We also needed faster sinking lines and more powerful rods.I then started experimenting with parallel lead core lines using a 30ft length as a shooting head. At that time there were no commercially-available fly rods in my tackle shops that were capable of handling such a heavy shooting head. I understand that Bob Church and Co. now produce a rod suitable for this work. I tried casting the head with a 11b test curve rod but found it under powered. Eventually, I found a blank powerful enough to cast the lead core and handle these deep water trout – it was a 1.5 lb test curve carp blank.I remember going in to see Dave Stuart at his Richmond upon Thames tackle shop. Dave has got to be the greatest all round angler that has ever been, his knowledge is second to none. (He also writes in this magazine sometimes). He was most interested in our findings and expressed some surprise when shown photos of the gutted trout with their stomach contents. Dave is also a first class rod builder and started the task of building the rod. He selected an 11ft softish carp blank with a 1.5 lb test curve and cut 18ins off the butt. This kept the action of the last 5 1/2 ft undisturbed by any spigot, whilst leaving a much shorter butt. He finished the rod so that it looked like a traditional fly rod, but it had lined hard-wearing low bell type intermediate rings, rather than snakes. The finish was absolutely top class.Dave then told me to use it with a large centre pin like a 4 1/2 inch Ariel rather than the smaller traditional fly reel. This would help counter balance the rod and more importantantly allow line to be played out more quickly on the water surface when the cast was made. Again he reminded me of the dangers of allowing the line to pendulum under the boat. The 4 1/2 inch reel also had the advantage of not holding the line on the reel in such tight loopsOff I went with the new outfit and Lee’s new flies to try again in the deep water of the Queen Mother reservoir. It only took about 65 seconds to reach the bottom in about 75 ft of water. On my second cast I had a fin perfect 61b 2oz rainbow. This, unlike any brown trout, shot vertically up to clear the surface like a polaris missile. It was hard to believe how quickly the fish had travelled that 75ft to clear the surface. Certainly a spectacular fight. I had another two rainbows, one was a 1 lb plus stockie and the other just over 41b before I stuck into solid resistance. Again it was a barbel-like fight and even with a powerful rod and an 81b leader, l could not easily bully the fish off of the bottom. This turned out to be a lovely marked cock brownie of just under 51b. That day I finished off my limit with two more rainbows of between 1lb and 2lb.Fly tier Lee was kept busy and started to produce buoyant flies that were fished with a 3ft leader. These flies dived to the bottom when pulled and rose up when pulling stopped. These were really the forunner of the modern booby, but again, the killing colour was green.One day, l was in the office weighing in (I had a near 71b brownie with several good rainbows to over 61b. and my gear was hanging up outside) when an elderly gentleman asked if the tackle outside was mine. I told him it was, and explained our tactics. He appeared most surprised and then commented very politely “that it was a most impressive catch but he thought many purist would say that I had an attitude problem to fly fishing”. There was no malice in him and it was fair comment in terms of traditional fly fishing. However his comments really stuck in my mind – leading to the title of this article.We continued to catch big rainbows and browns until the reservoir closed. However the story does not end as Pete Thompsett was determined to prove that these browns were so much like pike that he could catch a pike using our standard tactics. He set off to fish Grafham Reservoir with a large tube fly with a short wire trace. He was fishing a shallow water swim, by our standards, at about 20ft deep. His catch of a 361b10oz pike was, and I believe still is, the World Record fly caught pike.Since the Queen Mother has closed, l have – in the way of a contrast – concentrated on fishing much lighter. Much of my fly fishing has been on small streams with a number 4 line for grayling and browns.

However, this could all change since I had a chat with John Ray, the owner of Clawford Vineyard in Devon. John told me that although he had excellent trout fishing on site he always recommends that any fly angler staying at Clawford should spend a day on Roadford reservoir. This 730 acre reservoir is a brown trout only fishery that has a reputation as offering really challenging fishing. John advises his anglers to leave their waders behind and fish light, using walk and fish tactics. He then mentioned that boats were now available. I felt an immediate urge to get out my lead core outfit. No doubt next time at Clawford will see me out at Roadford reservoir with my lead core. It’s only 5 miles from Clawford and I doubt if I could find a nicer place to stay. My only question is, are their any pope down deep in Roadford reservoir? I doubt it. but I bet their are some big cannibal browns present in the deep water.