Welcome back.
(If not, stop now and read part one first, it's below this thread somewhere!)
Kevin my boat partner had given me the engine and control for the first two hours. This helped with my confidence as I couldn't help think the Scots didn't have a clear strategy. If I had a plan, the last thing I'd do is give up control.
I still hadn't decided where to go. My 1st line of attack was the dries, but with a strong, cold and gusty wind I wasn't sure it would work. (In fact I was pretty sure it wouldn’t but the optimist in me took the upper hand and I went out more in hope than better judgement).
See, Cold and gusty!!!!
Sitting out on the water I decided to head for shelter off Nunnery and see if there were any moving fish in the calmer water. I felt this was my best chance of getting a few on the dries, so I put on a claret hopper, black hopper and red bits. It looked like Kevin was on straight nymphs.
The hooter signalled the off and myself and about 10 other boats headed west. As I drew level with the cages and seeing only one boat heading into villis, I couldn't resist dipping in there myself to see if the big residents we'd found the previous day were feeding. As it turned out the other boat was John Horsey who I'd fished with the previous day, who also found it impossible to resist driving past the big fish.
I thought of the previous night for no apparent reason.
I saw one fish move as we motored in, but after 10 minutes of fishing and no other activity, we cut our losses and headed out to Nunnery where we spent 20 minutes drifting a lovely looking slick for no fish and no fish seen either. Kevin was straight line nymphing and hadn't had a sniff.
I'd decided to hit and run for the first hour and my next choice was either Morton or False Island. I looked across to my right and I saw a boat leaving Morton so we shipped the drogue and headed to false Island. A quick change of leader and on went the straight nymphs. 3 DB's and a small buzzer on the point. Ist drift and just before it shallowed onto the island I had a really very delicate take and a speculative lift of the rod and fish on!!!! The take was the same as a weedfish and the only indication was the tiniest straightening of the line. Fish hooked and I was more terrified than pleased! It was a decent fish and tore off into the shallows and gave me a good run around before eventually sliding, weed covered into the net.
It was a top dropper fish and I spent the next 5 minutes untangling my leader and getting everything on order. It should have taken less than that but for some reason the Parkinson’s had set in and I couldn't stop my hands shaking for some reason? 1105 was the time.
Two more drifts and I can't remember if Kevin caught or dropped a fish, I think he caught one, but no other takes and it was Kevin’s two hours in charge now.
A quick push over to the corner of Dennys and 45 minutes passed without any interest for either of us, but a move to the other corner saw me take my second fish of the day on the washing line, a black booby on the point and the buzzer being promoted one position up the leader.
Kevin had a fish pulling blobs just before, but I thought I’d stick with the nymphs for at least that drift. I'd switched to the washing line as we were over shallower weedy water. It was a typical buzzer tap take, a small tap on the line, lift and fish was on. I think this is the kind of feel you get when the fish takes coming towards you. It was another nice resident and I now had two fish for about 6lb.
Another drift to the same area with no result and with a number of other boats now on the drift we discussed options. We'd seen Phil Dixon come away from the North Shore with only one fish a few minutes earlier so we decided to head over to Morton with another look at Nunnery on the way.
As we approached Nunnery I spotted a bank angler about 200m into Herons playing a fish and a few seconds later a boat in the first bay after the stones also hooked up. We pulled in between the two and gave it a good half hour there. Kevin had a fish on the bung pretty quickly but I'd seen 3 fish move and made a quick switch back to the dries. We gave it a good 35 minutes longer but the fish stopped showing the second my dries hit the water and Kevin didn't have any more takes so we upped anchor and shot across to Morton.
A quick chat with John Horsey and he'd had 6 fish in the shallows...corrixia feeders and Jock his boat partner had 7 or 8 in the boat.
"Dries aren't working on them" John told me so I quickly changed back to the washing line with 3 DB's.
We stayed at Morton for about an hour and a quarter. I had two stonking takes that just didn't hook up and another take that did and resulted in my 3rd fish of the day at about 3-30pm, a smallish Brownie about one and a half pounds. It was getting too crowded in there for my liking with more boats arriving by the minute and plus I hadn't seen a fish caught for 20 minutes we decided it was time for another move.
We had a quick drift about 100m off Nunnery as some good fish had been showing there in practice later in the afternoon, but this coincided with the wind getting up and within minutes we were fishing in 20mph + winds.
We ducked round into Villis again where about 8 or 9 other boats had settled. We gave it half an hour in Villis and saw two fish caught but again nothing to our boat.
I had an idea!
We'd explored Wally bank extensively in practice and the return there was about a fish every hour, which we had thought not fast enough, especially as when you got on a pod of feeding fish at Nunnery or Denny’s you could pick up 4 or 5+ fish an hour when you got it right. It was obvious by now (it was obvious by 1200!) that this was a grind it out kind of day. I had an hour left to fish, Andrew Hedger confirmed it would be sheltered round there and I thought I'd settle for one more fish in the last hour.
I pulled in close by the reeds just after the Yacht club, intending to bump the bank all the way down to the dam.
I'd also decided that if I wasn't going to catch any more I was at least going to work my socks off for it. Pulling had definitely had the better results along Walley in practice, so another change of leader, 2 droppers and 13lb fluroflex plus, 2 blobs with a cormorant in the middle on a Di5. Wang it out and pulled straight back.
3rd cast and all went solid. Out gunned, another pound and a half brownie slipped into the net. As I netted the Brownie, Kevin also had a lock up on his pulling gear. Good move he said as he played his fish. We fished in silence for 10 minutes after the hook pulled free on his fish as he prepared to net it. I could smell the anger and disappointment from his end of the boat.
40 minutes to go. Kevin had another good take on the Di3 and I had a bus stopping pull on the Di5 that somehow didn't manage to hook itself.
20 minutes to go. Kevin had just lost another fish on a cormorant so I quickly changed to a 40+ Di3 and swapped the point blob for another cormorant. I had a huge swirl to the blob on lifting off to cast. To be fair I didn't hang it long enough but I'd had no interest on the hang all day. I immediately dropped the flies on the swirl and let them sink. A firm tap from the fish and a swift lift of the rod resulted in 3 flies swirling in the wind and a little bit of swearing on my part.
All too soon it was 1750 and time to head back to the pontoon. Had we done enough?
The weigh in was tense with mixed fortunes in all the teams, it was going to be close. We calculated we had 47 fish, we quickly heard the Irish had less than 40 fish but the Scots and Welsh had some good bags.
The weigh in fish count put us three ahead on numbers of fish but the Welsh had a couple of better fish. We knew the result before it was announced. The welsh had pipped us by around 2lb.
I really thought we had done it when I heard we were 3 fish ahead but within seconds the management’s calculators gave us the bad news. I shook hands and congratulated the Welsh boys with a smile on my face. I can't say I was pleased for them, that would be a lie. It was a hard and close fought battle on a difficult day at Chew. As much as I hate to say it, as is always the way with these things, the best team won on the day. It can be nothing else.
The evening’s formalities were jovial and pleasant, Moc Morgan taking acute pleasure in his speeches with subtle praise for the men of Wales and humorous barbs for the rest of us. His speech was mercifully funny and short. I left the bar sometime after 3am. I know I was drunk because I sang a song. Only a verse and a chorus, to the fine tune of "I've been a wild rover for many a year". It goes like this...
I've been a Trout Angler for many a year
And I've spent all my money on fly tying gear
I came to Chew Valley to catch me some trout
But I drank too much port, all I got was the Gout
And it's no more fishing,
No more fishing no more
Cus the Welsh they have beat us
No fishing no more.
No one clapped.
An Englishmans Story - Part Two.
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