Flies for flat days

How many summer days have you spent by the river casting out fly after fly, but to no avail? Alistair Robjent has some solutions.

Hot summer days, around the end of July and into August, have often been seen as unproductive periods for trout fishing. The mayflies have finished; ‘duffers fortnight’ as it is affectionately known here in Hampshire is over, the fish won’t start feeding until the cool of the evening. So what are the fish doing during the middle of the day? The simple answer is, not a lot.

A trout will sit deep during the hottest parts of the day, conserving energy. Bright sunlight easily dazzles trout because of their lack of eyelids, forcing them to seek cover from the sun. The key to catching fish during these midday lulls is to use a fly the fish will not be able to resist. “Something big and juicy”. The two main types of insect trout rely on for food, are aquatic insects; mayflies, caddis flies, olives etc... and terrestrial insects; daddy long legs, grasshoppers, beetles. Rather than being limited to a time of day, a terrestrial insect can be out at any time.

The trademark splash we all hear from downstream, is most likely a trout leaping to catch a water-skimming insect. A fish will often make that extra effort to catch a big terrestrial insect like a cranefly. The daddy longlegs does not often remain on the water’s surface for long, so when they do, a trout will quite literally jump at the chance, normally resulting in an aggressive take.

Not all artificial daddy’s work – after many years of fishing I discovered there was a fundamental fl aw in the way they are tied – ie with a human eye rather than a fish’s eye. The key was to tie a pattern that sat on the water, upright and proud on its legs like a spider. This looks far more realistic to the fish. By redesigning the daddy I have also found that it works extremely well when fishing a weir or mill pool. The buoyancy it offers allows it to remain afloat even when bombarded by the spray and the current, which would normally sink any other dry fly pattern. It will get those big fat record fish up from the depths.

But daddies don’t come out until September I hear you all cry. This is in fact a fallacy. The cranefly reaches its adult stage throughout the summer season. The reason we all see so many during September, is because the harvest disturbs their long grass and corn habitat. So the trout will consider a cranefly as a normal, yet rare meal, throughout the season.

Having chosen the fly, cast out, seen a fish come… only to turn away at the last minute. What went wrong? In 90% of cases most fishermen will simply change the fly and try again. However, if the fish rose to the fly in the first place, the problem lies elsewhere.The fish has seen your leader!

In bright sunlight the leader becomes even more obvious, you may even notice a shadow on the bottom. The leader is more visible to the trout due to the imprint it makes in the surface tension of the water; it appears three to four times larger than it really is.

Most leaders will sparkle in bright sunlight which will spook a fish, so most people simply try a thinner leader. However these will often distort or get knotted when casting a big fly, not to mention snapping under strain, exactly as American made leaders then to do on the strike. In order to solve this problem simply rub some ‘fuller’s earth’ or ‘leader sink’, on to a steeply tapered English leader.

This clay-like substance allows the leader to sink slightly and stops it reflecting.

I recommend a camo-green main line, instead of a gordy yellow or orange which again will only spook fish. Having developed my own version of the cranefly known as the Robjent’s Daddy Long Legs, I have given them out to customers who complain of little action during the middle of the day. Not one has been disappointed. With this information you can no longer blame the hot sunny weather! www.robjents.co.uk Tel: 01264 810 829

 
 
 

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