Last Night after mi Roast beef and Yorkshire puds I went down the local beck 5 mins from my door, I figured I would have an and a half or so for the evening rise. Kit for me was a 7ft softish 3wght a DT line and one of my old but trusty reels together with what was in my new posh waistcoat ... The beck is about 20 ft wide well overgrown so its best to fish it in chesties and work slowly upstream..Weird thing last night was the amount of scum and bubbles coming downstream ...




I had been fishing for a hour or so and came across a new young member fishing hard I observed him from a distance for a while,, Casting wasnt bad ,perhaps there was a little to much effort and a lot to much casting As I watched him though it appeared to me he was having difficulty he was catching bankside herbage all the time .. The fish feed tight to the banks under the overhanging stuff…



I eventually made my way to him and after introductions enquired about his luck.. I the following 5 minutes received a machine gunned instruction course with all the enthusiasm of youth and inexperience .

In the next 10 minutes I persuaded him that he didn’t need a 16ft leader although he had read that wild trout require great stealth and at least that length of leader.. 9 to10 ft was easily adequate and much easier to cast accurately, When I questioned the 7/8 size reel he told me he was late fishing that evening because he had to swap his line on his reel as he could only afford one disc drag reel, ( biggest native fish in the stream would be about a 12oz ) I suggested he didn’t need a disc drag and could buy a suitable one for very little but no amount of persuasion would make him agree, He firmly believed that only reels with a drag are any good. He had also picked a pretty fast action rod which was hampering his short line fishing. Again chosen because there the ones that come out tops in the tests.

In the end to persuade him ,for half an hour I stood behind him and he fished with my kit… Once I had got him to slow down he caught a couple..



The one thing that came out of this for me was how complicated he perceived this river fishing to be, He has fished gravel pits for a year or so and was able to cast , But how he wanted to cast. All the time even when trying to move positions . I think that was the conditioning from the pits.. I reckon in the hour I fished last night I probably made 20 casts . I caught 4 and missed as many…Whilst I was watching him he just cast constantly…

He also was desperate to try czech nymphing but he couldn’t do it until he had a 10ft rod??? Again the obsession with the kit.. Youngsters don’t seem to go through the phases people did 40 yrs ago. My first years were with one rod ABU 7wght and ABU reel… I used that on lakes river becks and streams and caught plenty but then there was no one telling me it was the wrong kit for the job. During the conversation I enquired if he had read any books on trout fishing I suggested I could lend him the odd title however he seemed to think that unless it was up to date stuff in magazines it wasn’t any good.

Sorry about the ramble but somehow I felt unsettled that something as simple and easy is been made so apparently complicated. Is it possible there is to much info out there so misleading for the young and enthusiastic.

I have arranged to meet him next week and have also arranged to give him a an old rimfly reel to use on the beck until he can afford a disc drag. I reckon he will make a cracking angler when I can get him to slow down a little... He made me feel positively ancient,,,

Nice story coasty. Ah yes, the impetuousness of youth.

Speaking of `latest kit' I've noticed something of late that does seem to have become a little bit of an obsession with some anglers. The need to use BRIGHT ORANGE backing, and a different coloured line, and the importance of being able to see both, with a loop style reel. Are we really becoming that colour coordinated? Or am I just getting old.

What a great story. Hope the lad will realise how lucky he is to have someone like you showing him the ropes. A similar thing happened to me on my local river,however the roles were reversed.It was the young lad showing me the ropes.

Good story coasty. Interesting point made - I was guilty of it but have now 'found my way'. Fewer bits of kit; just the right ones.....

Yep, top stuff Andy.

Regards, G...

__________________
"Perfection will do"

Nice one coasty

I don't think it is a case of latest kit well not in my case it was a simple case of economics I bought a new reel which came supplied with extra cassettes and I needed some backing so it was a case of paying £3.00 for 50mtrs or £10.00 for 500 mtrs it just so happens the 500mtrs comes in orange and nothing else anyway stuart come on jazz your gear up a bit m8 get with it I am sure the fish won't mind.

Alan

Yes, you're probably right Alan, must drag myself out of the dark ages...though olive always seems more appealing.

Where did she come from does popeye know.

Alan

A nice tale, Coasty, and oh so common! Someone once said that there is nothing so simple that it cannot easily be made complicated. I don't know who it was; might have been a relative, because I have never gone in for change for change's sake. I'm an old tackle tramp. My theory is, if I'm not going to catch anything, I might as well not catch it with the gear I already have.
I sometimes wonder, does the angler of today ever stop to think how we managed pre the days of graphite rods, fluorocarbon mono and breathables. Actually, we managed very well, and we didn't spend anything like as much time going back to the tackle shop and moaning about leaky waders, soles coming off boots, floating lines that sink, sinking lines that won't, fluorocarbon that floats as well as copolymer, line sinkant that doesn't work.
I see the advantages of modern tackle, but I have indulged in moderation. Rods are lighter and require less care than the old cane rods, lines are less of a pain to look after than silk was, monofilament materials are much finer than they were, but one thing hasn't c
anged; it's the angler that catches the fish. If he isn't up to scratch, it doesn't matter what his gear costs. TC
PS We can buy a rod with a lifetime warranty; but no one can sell you a 'guaranteed to eliminate blanks' piece of kit.

I fished when I was a lad, stopping as a teenager then took it up again at the insistence of my 7 year old daughter, after a holiday in North Yorkshire where the people on holiday with us tried for trout on the campsite's river.
I borrowed some old equipment when I got back home, dug out what my parents hadn't thrown away, and low and behold, I became hooked again on the banks of the Upper Don.

That was four years ago, this is now my first year of fly fishing, and I have to agree with TC, there is something special about old equipment. My Intrepid Gearfly reels look very pretty with yellow backing and light blue lines, but the olive floater and original blue and white flecked backing looks the best.

It is hard to enter fly fishing as it can be an exact science or a make do one, both requiring the angler to be competent. As a wrong side of forty year old, suddenly becoming incompetent at such an engrosing activity makes it very tempting to reach for the credit card to buy better flies, tippett, leader, line, rod, reel etc etc.

How long do you thrash away trying to get all the different links in the chain right before you catch fish? My wife can't understand why I'm not coming home with trout everytime, although I no longer smell of maggots, and there are less flies in the house (arguments passim...)

When I was a lad, it was easy to ask for and accept advice, although you always liked to think you knew it. Now I'm heading towards being an oldie, or already am one, asking for advice is strange. Luckily for me, most fly fishers are older than me!!!!!

However, if anyone fishes Scout Dike reservoir, or fishes somewhere near Sheffield and is willing to answer a million questions and let me learn from their experience at the bankside, I would be delighted and very grateful to meet up and fish sometime, and I will buy you a pint or two after.

I must warn you, my equipment is mainly old and make do, mixed with the latest frog hair fluorocarbon tippett and home made cat litter based line sinkant..........