Some people meditate, some people pull daft poses and touch their noses to their rears. Others sit in front of screens fighting battles with others on the other side of the planet while screaming profanities. I prefer to scream my profanities at the dog, the river, the branch that moved in the way of my leader, the trout that just slipped the fly at the hand, hooked while pulling something not dissimilar to yoga poses to achieve THAT cast. Don’t mistake me, there is no sitting in the lotus meditating fish out of the river going on here…. rather standing on one tiptoe to avoid that hole in the crotch of my tatty old waders while peeking around a fallen tree. It’s yoga Jim, but not as we know it.
Trout are canny, we all know this, it’s been covered by every writer on the subject in minute detail to which I will add. Frustrating, stupid, wonderful and canny. They can give themselves up so willingly one day, kidding you into dubbing yourself ‘GOD OF THE FISH, MWAHAHAHA’ and the next be as petulant as my teenage son when he can’t go to ‘Magic The Gathering’ club due to family commitments. The sheer stupidity of these fish means that, for some ungodly reason, we have to stack the odds in their favour by tying the most unrealistic flies imaginable, then kidding ourselves we are imitating nature. I wouldn’t change it for the world; it is the most deplorably addictive waste of time I have found to date, especially as I am a devout C+R disciple yet shoot and eat most legal game in this country except Hares which I adore ust too much. The worst thing is that it has completely ruined course fishing for me. I once lived for carp and barbel, I was heavily involved with Redmire and used to catch over 300 barbel a year. Every year. I have no appetite for that any more. ‘orrible creatures. I had the mecca of those disciplines, but mecca turned out to be lacking.
The best thing about trout is that the good ones, the wild ones, tend to live in places of heartbreaking beauty. In my case this is the Monnow Valley, an arcane relatively unspoilt little valley on the Welsh Borders where the river meanders through generational Estate land, hamlets, sheep pasture and castles. I like generational wealth, estates and land ownership – it helps keep prime fishing and shooting out of the hands of developers and aggressive agriculture; don’t mistake envy for classism and inverted snobbery, a dickhead is a dickhead no matter what they are worth, or how many times their surname is hyphenated. However this attitude could be proven falsehood as the new generations seem to have forgotten land management for sporting recreation (and habitat management that benefits native species as a paid for byproduct) in favour of AirbnB development, crisp farming and country retreats for those less fortunate souls that live in the cities. My fear is that it is the country that will eventually retreat.
I like generational wealth, estates and land ownership – it helps keep prime fishing and shooting out of the hands of developers and aggressive agriculture; don’t mistake envy for classism and inverted snobbery, a dickhead is a dickhead no matter what they are worth, or how many times their surname is hyphenated.
However this attitude could be proven falsehood as the new generations seem to have forgotten land management for sporting recreation (and habitat management that benefits native species as a paid for byproduct) in favour of AirbnB development, crisp farming and country retreats for those less fortunate souls that live in the cities. My fear is that it is the country that will eventually retreat.
Fly tying is as much of the sport for me as the fishing – it whiles away the winter between deer stalking, beating and mud. The brain cells I have dedicated to ‘pattern development’ are ridiculous. ‘My’ theory of the imprint of the fly in the surface film being more important than anything else and the development of the ‘Monnow Hackle’ (semi palmered, very open dry fly hackle from the point to eye, clipped along the bottom). I have unashamedly plagiarised this, but from where I have conveniently forgotten. The looks on my poor tropical fish and Axolotl’s faces which live in the large tank next to my desk when a new pattern is dumped in so I can see the imprint from below are something to see. If an amphibian can look disappointed in someone, Timmy the Axolotl has it down to an art.
There’s only one choice of fly box for me. Wheatley – a wonderful old 12 compartment one with a leather ‘Leader wallet’ in the lid I picked up off ebay and my grandfather’s old, tiny, nymph one that i never use because I am appalling at fishing sub surface. Gone are the days of carrying 5 boxes with hundreds of flies I never use, as well as those damn waistcoats that I can never remember which pocket I put whatever it was that I was looking for in. My goal is to now have 12 dry patterns to cover the year. The challenge is actually finding 12 I will use rather than just chucking on one of my four go-to’s; The polish poacher (named by Patrick Lloyd, a hairy, scruffy creation – equally applicable to Pat as the fly), The Monnow mayfly/Active mayfly dun, Emerging Mayfly and the griffiths gnat. Those four flies account for probably 95% of the fish I catch with the Polish Poacher taking the lion’s share and then some – that fly fishes from March to September being essentially a poor evolution on the indomitable Adams Fly, and proof that trout have truly appalling taste.
I have a pet peacock called Bruce. It isn’t a posh thing, but he really is the most wonderful animal – he sits at my office demanding food by pecking at the window and squawks at ungodly times of the night. I swapped him for a case of beer with a customer in central Birmingham when he turned up in the pub garden… I live rurally… so 1+1= peacock. He is simply an amazing addition to the home and an endless supply of fly tying material and amusement. My wonderful wife Jess agrees, and she isn’t here to disagree anyway.
Potatoes are a real problem in our little backwater county. The argument that ‘we are feeding the country’ is akin to what they spread on the spuds. Make no mistake, spuds for crisps and chips are a lucrative business, especially when you can make your crisps from your own spuds and greenwash them with biodegradable wrappers. It is a shame about the tons upon tons of sediment and unfixed nitrogen and phosphates that flow into the rivers as a product of spud farming and the fines that seem to be seen as a running cost. Likewise ‘green’ energy from anaerobic digesters. The maize grown to feed these, well the run off from the fields it is grown in, is destroying the soil, likewise the liquor byproduct fertiliser spread on fields. The digersters were set up on government funding to hit their ‘green targets’.. The damage to the Wye is astonishing. The fields look like the aftermath of a severe himalayan balsam outbreak – desert-like with no soil structure, stripped of nutrients and just waiting to wash into the rivers like it does on the Wye. Chicken sheds get the bad rap, but they are far from the only culprit. I would argue that they are, or at least could be, a closed system. Fortunately the Monnow is largely sheep grazing, but the spud and corn boys are chipping away.. Pun most definitely intended.
The Monnow’s biblical spates carve out new lies each year, giving it’s anglers an almost new river and leaving islands and nooks akin to Roger Dean’s ‘Floating Islands’ with the trailing maze of roots being safe havens for trout. I’m of the opinion that a tatty river is a trouts haven. I am fortunate in that I am secretary of The Garway Fly Fishers Club on the Monnow, a nice, small, benign dictatorship of a club with no rules and just the expectation of people not to act like twits.. It works and works very well. The members come in every shape and skill set and every one of them are gems, although some live a little close to the river for my liking. I much prefer my club members to be located in different time zones than the river. It is however a club that has stunning scenery, a freedom to fish whenever you wish over the whole year with some sensational winter Grayling fishing. As well as this I am on Tregate Anglers downstream who, for the first time in 70 years, have finally agreed to stop stocking and turn it to a completely wild trout fishery. Fortunately the days of the ‘kill everything I catch’ brigade are going and good riddance to them.
The important thing, the overriding message that I am trying to get across is that this daft, wonderful, exhilarating passtime is the best, most rewarding waste of time I have found in my 40 years … but it needs to be protected, it needs to have young blood and it needs passion. My eldest son and my 12 year old daughter have the bug and I hope they will be disciples. Long may it last.
