Outside Days » trout

One Season Closes, Another Opens

Howard — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:39:23 +0000

When Britain mothballs game shooting for the season, my attentions turn to sport further afield, and to the next season looming on the horizon – a summer of game clays and fishing for trout and salmon.

While you’ve been reliving the season past over a pint and cleaning your gun for the final time, I’ve been to the GP to arrange shots and contemplated packing for a guinea pig trip to South Africa in May. Never one to live in the present, I had the details of that trip sewn up with my Christmas shopping: now I’m firming up plans for trips to Croatia in early August. Better known for boar and deer (which we can also arrange), Croatia is also home to a species of quail so small that disturbed coveys have been described as swarming bees. Cheap flights to parts of Croatia have made bargain sporting breaks a tempting prospect. We’ll be putting together teams to go to locations near Split and Zagreb in pursuit of these tiny dynamos. The sport will be quail over pointers at either end of the day (avoiding midday heat), and ‘cultural’ activities in between. As always with pointers, the ideal team size is 4, and the standard package is 2 days sport, 3 nights accommodation. If birds the size of angry bees are your thing, get in touch.

When game birds become protected species on February 2nd, trigger fingers across the country begin to itch through lack of use. Simulated game, or game clays as I like to call them, provides the remedy for many of you each year. From April until mid-July we offer days on several locations in the South, or we can bring the sport to you. Unlike driven shooting where the line is limited to 6 to 10 guns, we work on 12 to 18. Perfect for everything from team building to wedding guest amusement, we’ve organised days for it all. From fully catered with wait staff and candelabras to picnics in a hay barn or sandwiches from the boot, we can do it all. For the lone gun or incomplete line, we have a number of scratch days throughout the simulated season. Get in touch if firing upwards of 400 cartridges a day sounds like fun.

My sporting passion began with rod and line, and every year as the buds burst and the days lengthen I am drawn back to my roots on the river bank. Whether your pleasure is still water or river, novice or experienced fisherman, we have opportunities to flick fluff at trout for all. Days are booking up rapidly, but remember you can always fit in an evening’s sport after the office closes with some of our waters catering to the afterhours fisherman.

Devonshire Flyrod McNab: Freshwater

Howard — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:57:48 +0000

We wrote this blog more than a year ago, but had to hold off sharing it with you for editorial reasons. Now, in the gloomy rain of autumn, it seems appropriate to hark back to summers gone, and dream of the ones to come. As I have observed when trying to justify my attempts to catch barbel on the fly, fishermen invent new challenges when bored. The Arundell Arms staff, passionate about their flyfishing, have invented the Devonshire Flyrod McNab: brown trout, sea trout and sea bass on the fly in a day. I’ve been desperate to visit the infamous Arms since I was 10 and keen to learn to flyfish. Needless to say, my parents couldn’t be convinced to send their kid off to Devon on his own, and had no interest in accompanying me, so I had to satisfy myself with drooling over their brochures. Thirty years on, Anne Voss-Bark was kind enough to invite me and Number Two to stay and attempt the McNab.

The 2008 season was a challenging one on the spate rivers, with the constant rain making conditions unpredictable, but I packed my rods in great anticipation, and headed west. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of staying at the Arundell Arms, it is famed as much for its fabulous food and hospitality as for the 20 miles of fishing on the Tamar and its tributaries.

Conditions on the Tamar resembled the Nile in flood, ruling out any night time adventures as the water was just too dangerous to fish for sea trout in the dark. Come the morning, it was apparent we would have to be clever with our fly choice to tempt salmonids of any flavour to take. Needless to say after several hours of dangling Pilkington Bumbles (our ghillie’s foolproof invention) in likely spots, we conceded defeat and beat a hasty retreat to the welcoming arms of the bar. Under fishing paraphernalia that would make the most accquisitory collector blush, we plotted and schemed the salty part of the day’s challenge.

A Lewis Year: Four Seasons Six Species One Day

Howard — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Fortunately, excursions to the Outer Hebrides aren’t made or broken by the weather…for dour folk, the Hebrideans are weather optimists: whatever comes next, it won’t be the same twice. Very like the sport. After grouse, the odd snipe or passing plover, and a whatever the collective noun is for 3 salmonid species, we’d stretched FlyBe’s weight limit with kit and headed north.

All I can say is we didn’t see snow. There were plenty of coveys – Scottish National Heritage’s commitment to mink trapping real seems to be paying off with groups of 5 or 6 replacing the twos and threes of previous seasons (turn numbers are on the up, too). The wind was determined to make its presence a factor: moments of absolute stillness, broken by the midges, had the dogs befuddled by lack of scent. A couple of hours later, and we had birds out-racing Superman and needed elastic for our hats. In between, we managed some excellent shooting, bagging braces of birds in great condition.

The variety of fishing normally offered by the island’s lochs, burns and rivers from boat and shore was supplemented by the challenge of a generous wind. It provided some excellent gifts (two minutes of video of our man in the Hebrides clinging to a rock by his prehensile Northern toes, fishing all the while…priceless), and plenty of brown trout. Their larger cousins rolled at the occasional fly, but stayed warm and wet out of the wind.

Well worth it for the sighting of a sea eagle and a peregrine sharing the same sky, not to mention stags, seals and numerous golden eagles, we still have a couple of spaces for walked up woodcock for this season, and are booking up fast for next year’s grouse over pointers. Get in touch and go wild.

Casts From a Gravel Path: Sea Trout in Low Water

Howard — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:37:39 +0000

Way back in the grim castless days of last season when Toby the Pedant suggested we explore the sea trout possibilities of his local waters, it seemed a fabulous idea. I rounded up some willing guinea pigs, and we made for the wilds of the West Country. The perils of planning a water-dependent venture so far in advance (more than a couple of days) are always amplified when fishing spate rivers like Devon’s. A lovely and DRY spring had Toby praying for rain.

As always, when the rain came, it came too late for the fish, but in plenty of time to drench the fishermen. We arrived for two days fishing and spent the first afternoon doing recognisance of the beats and access points while doing our best to tempt the odd wild brownie out from under the trees. It is always worth looking at a river you intend to fish in the dark BEFORE it gets dark…a river can change in character and lay of the land enormously in a short period of months. Better to identify the obstacles and hazards while you can see and avoid them rather than after you are standing in them. What we found was a sea trout pool with an enormous fallen tree in the middle of it (not there when Toby and I had explored in the spring), water moving so slowly that it was like fishing a pond, and the riffles between pools resembling gravel paths.

Despite the conditions, all five of us caught some brownies, but the sea trout were more elusive, probably queuing down at the river’s mouth waiting for the rain to raise water levels. We heard the odd splash, but only one sea trout was landed. The best bit about guinea pigs is their acceptance of the small pleasures of fishing: although we all had fun, before we offer this as a regular package we need to think long and hard about the impact of water level on these spate streams. Too little, and you find what we did. Too much, and it is like fishing the Nile: you are as likely to hook a hippo as a fish.

Salmon, trout and….tuna?!

Howard — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:37:35 +0000

With my son in an Irish boarding school, I have taken to haunting Ireland’s rivers and coast in search of perfect sporting opportunities. We’ve bagged two new jaunts based around Dingle Bay in County Kerry: salmon and trout on the lower stretches of the River Caragh and albacore tuna on the fly offshore.The Upper Caragh appears in the pages of Salmon & Trout on a regular basis, but until this season, the Lower Caragh was a net fishery. And fly fishing for tuna? The skipper caught the European record albacore in 2007 on lures and is absolutely convinced that the piscine champion of the northern seas will take to the fly.

There are no rod records for the Lower Caragh, so short of sticking a wet finger in the wind and guessing, we can only tell you the Upper Caragh records 250-300 salmon a year, and the net fishery was declaring a similar number. The river is dotted with the riffs, ripples and pools that make salmon fishing so exciting. Sea trout and brownies also run in the river, and there are an abundance of sea bass in the sea pool and estuary, making multispecies days a possibility.

For regular readers of these pages, you’ll know I’m easily goaded into non-traditional sporting challenges, egged on and accompanied by Special John, Kayak Nick, Tobias the Pedant and Tony. When I heard the nearby wildlife touring boat turned its hand to a little offshore tuna fishing for a few months a year, I had to challenge the captain. So he’d caught the European record…could he help me and anyone crazy enough to join me tackle tuna on the fly? He’s game…are you?

***there are still a few places for rods on a trip the first week in August to fish the Lower Caragh’s salmon run***

More to Retail than a Register

Howard — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:36:51 +0000

Orvis has become synonymous with flyfishing, a company passion evident in everything they produce from rods to luggage to clothing. That commitment to the sport extends to training their retail staff. Recently Stockbridge Assistant Store Manager Philip Nicholson participated in one of the numerous Beginners Weekends Orvis offer through out the season. He caught five fish, two rainbows, two brownies, and a grayling using a nine foot 5 weight TLS Matrix rod and a Battenkill Mid Arbor 3 reel.

In the process, Orvis have made Phil a much better salesperson: he has more in common with his customers having experienced the elation of playing a trout. And he’s beginning to understand just how personal rod selection can be, and why having the right fly can make all the difference. I look forward to hearing tall tales of fish lost and those caught from Phil for years to come. So if you are passing the Stockbridge store, pop in and give Phil some stick.

Snagging the Impossible? Barbel on the Fly

Howard — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:04:31 +0000

When men are bored, we invent a new sport. When fishermen are bored, we invent new ways to catch familiar fish, or new fish to catch with familiar methods. And so began the quest to catch a barbel on the fly.I hate being told I can’t do something. And we all know I hate it more when Jon one ups me. So when, over a post-fluff flicking pint, he began to muse about whether it would be possible to get a barbel to take a fly, I knew my summer had just gotten interesting.

One sunny evening Jon and I set out with his mate Tom to test the waters. The trout had been going mad all evening on a rise, so it stood to reason… Fishing heavy Czech nymphs with my Helios nine foot eight weight, I started wading below a promising shoal of barbel. The nymphs were necessitated by the barbel’s physiology as bottom feeders. The difficulty is that the nymph has to be presented so it comes down to them where they are sitting in deeper, fast-flowing water…and look natural. As Jon spectated from the bank, I worked my way upstream without success. Tom, sensibly forsaking barbel for pike, was into a fish on his second cast. Perhaps our approach needs a rethink…

Fishing from Spring to See

Howard — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:00:47 +0000

The cool, clear waters of the Austrian rivers are fed by snow melt and springs, ideal for the salmonids they contain in diversity. The Austrians have a saying: ‘If you want to fish for big trout, fish in America. If you want to catch big trout, fish Austria.’ I never got any further than Innsbruck last week, but the tall tales the fishermen there had to tell coupled with the diversity of water I saw have me going back for more.

And they don’t stop with trout: Austria has been blessed with a feast of salmonids from the Danube salmon to the Siberian grayling and Arctic char. While plans are in the works for a lab rat trip to Outer Mongolia (taimen and partridge) for September ‘09, Austria provides great value for money much closer to home. Three day Austrian fishing packages start at £500 per rod. If you are interested, get in touch and we can tailor a package to suit.

Fish ID: Plan See Trout

Howard — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:30:52 +0000

Having grabbed a few days holiday (ie. scouting trip for future packages), I packed my five weight Frequent Flyer and headed to the Austrian Tirol with my wife.The advantage of a second wife is you realise the importance of choosing someone tolerant of ones foibles and predelictions. I picked a game model happy to slog along lake shores to photograph my successes, supply flies, and sherpa kit.

Finding ourselves on the shores of the Heiterwanger Plan See, I took the opportunity to explore the waters rod in hand. According to the local fishing club, the lake, 200 feet deep in places, boasts trout and whitefish to double figures. Needless to say, fishing from the shore I caught slightly smaller specimens, the best being a 3lb+ wild rainbow. Admittedly, my tackle was a poor match for the situation, having anticipated stream and river fishing and not lake.

My German extends to the ordering of two sizes of beer. While equipped for discssing philosophy, my mini OED-German dictionary exhibited a paucity of terms for wildlife (although I can tell you the German for ‘paucity’ is wenigkeit). Add to that the extremely silver appearance of everything I hoicked from the water, and it became a challenge to ID my catch. Anyone who is interest in being a guinea pig on an Austrian expedition, or who can tell me more about the mysterious ‘renke’, please get in touch.

When it comes to sea trout, is size everything?

Howard — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:14:45 +0000

For those of you who are regular readers of my ramblings, you may remember my mate Jon, who responded to my lack of success on the muntjac front (an ongoing sore point) with news of medal-standard success, and photos of Chinese water deer. Well, he’s been at it again. One upping me in the sea trout stakes. He pulled this lovely 13lb 4oz stonker from the bit of the River Itchen he keepers a couple of weeks ago. And he didn’t even have to stay up all night!

I’m still stalking that *&%$*@^ muntjac: Jon’s success only inspires the competitive spirit in me. If you fancy joining me on the banks of the Itchen in my continued bid to outdo him, we have started a waiting list for 2009 tidal pool sea trout fishing, and there is limited availability on stretches higher up the Itchen (including Jon’s) for this season. I’ll by the beer if you can outdo Jon.