November in Cuba
- At January 26, 2016
- By admin
- In Travel
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Having been told that we would in all probability be unable to get a booking for 2016 in Las Salinas, several of my usual group decided to have one last trip. The reason for Las Salinas being unavailable is that a new outfit is to take the place over and put in swish new boats and charge four or five times as much as we currently pay, oh, and make you stay in the hotel in Playa Larga…no thank you!
So, Simon, Mike, Matthew and Brett (first timer) signed up for the trip. I must say that it was one of our best for many reasons. Primarily, the water was as high as any previous trip – the first few days it was actually washing right over the track to the boats. Secondly, the group really seemed to gel, and that makes for a happy time, and finally the fishing was good.
Our old friends were there – Julio, Manolo, Roberto, Adisbel, Juan-Carlos, Lazaro and we met up with Felipe, though as his wife is ill he didn’t guide us on this trip. WE got to fish in the mangroves a lot more than usual as the water was so high. This really does make for great fishing! I love the real sense of hunting as you pole around the shrubs and have to look in all directions. The fish really can be and are all over the place. Then, if you manage to hook-up you have that odd playing of the fish that run off through the mangroves…of letting them run with the clutch off the reel. This is to prevent the fish just turning round and round one stem and so straightening the hook. This still happened a couple of times, but by and large, if you manage to go against instinct and let the line go slack you will usually land the fish.
I had a couple of great days, several modest days and one day – the last, which I spent with Julio, when I really could not get a fish to take the fly. In fact, I think I spooked more fish that day than in all of the years I have fished at Las Salinas. Sure, we were in shallow water, but I think I generally like that challenge. I could not fault Julio for his efforts. But, it was incredibly bright and really quite calm ion the mangroves and the fish were just soooo spooky! I landed only two, but can honestly say that I had a brilliant day.
Brett had a whale of a time – as I knew he would. I wish I had tried to talk him into a trip years ago! Matthew was up to the challenge again and “worried” many a cervesa and plenty of ron!, and also troubled the local hospital when he sliced his toe open on a dodgy screw as he fell – or “slipped” down the stairs one night. Mike was more at ease than any previous trip and so, I believe caught more than ever. Sadly, his one great day on the river was spoiled by using a spool of eighty pound nylon that I gave him (I had been given it by Felipe last trip) as he hooked about nine or ten fish and only landed a couple! He even had the brand new fly line break on one fish. Quite a day to remember for the wrong reasons. Simon as ever caught plenty and a decent variety of species – I think he won that challenge easily!
But, I have managed to book for one more trip. I head off with a group in April, though I am going to get a couple of weeks looking further round the island with my wife prior to the fishing party arriving. Unfortunately we will not be fishing Salinas but at Cayo Coco. So we will have a new challenge!
July – the month of strong winds!
- At July 25, 2015
- By admin
- In Lake fishing, Uncategorized
- 0
Just past the middle of July and the wind has been relentless. I cancelled my client yesterday, BRFFA have decided that it would be in everyone’s interest to cancel tomorrow’s “Troutwatch” Hidden Teams event, and I am about to phone Monday’s client to cancel that trip. Tomorrow and Monday we have winds forecast at over 25 mph, which from the south is pretty hopeless on Chew.
Annoyingly the week before last was my best of the season with clients doing great things: Jonathan Howitt took
twelve trout on dries on the Tuesday – returning a brown trout of 4lbs 9oz (pictured right) and three of his rainbows, yet still weighed in over 25lbs of fish. Marc (pictured below) had six fantastic fish in a half day session on the Monday, and then on the Friday Ken Pascoe and his son John took fifteen trout throughout the day. Ken just couldn’t manage that eighth fish to complete a “limit” for the first time, in spite of rising around twelve fish, hooking and losing another and smashing on a big fish…all after landing his seventh! On Thursday Laurence had three fish on the only tough day of that week and I had Wednesday at Blagdon.
The Blagdon day was for the Yeo Valley Organic food company. They hosted a “catch and cook” day, and I had to organise 23 ghillies to look after many first time anglers. The day was a relative success, with about 45 fish being caught in the short time that the guests fished – three hours at the outside. I had two journalists along with me -Martin and Andy, both directors of the S.W. News Service. Andy fishes a bit in Ireland and soon hooked a fish, but, it came off. Then Martin, who had never caught a fish in his life hooked a decent fish on a dry fly and played (expertly) and landed a brown trout of exactly 4lbs 8oz (pictured below). 
Some fish to take as your first ever! Andy then caught two rainbows and lost another three. Had he managed to land one of those fish he and Martin would have been top pairing!
I’m off to Rutland for a change of scenery next week, though the way that Chew and Blagdon are fishing it is hard to drag myself away!
May and June fishing
- At June 22, 2015
- By admin
- In Dry Fly, Travel
- 0
I cannot believe that we have reached and passed mid summer’s day and I have not posted since March. I have to admit that I have been busy, but I should surely have found more time…
I took a bunch of friends to Ireland in early May and we really had a tough time of the weather. With boats hired for six days, we ended up not using them for two of those days as Corrib was more like the North Sea. The days we went out fishing as tough. We had chances and caught on buzzers fished slowly or static, but personally I don’t go to Ireland to fish such methods. I was hoping for some dry fly sport. There were some mayflies about and there were heaps of olives, but as I have often found, the fish were really not responding to the adult olives.
We had a marvellous cottage right on the lough shore and we had barely thirty metres to walk to get on board each day. I hired a couple of the boats from Basil Shields and the third one from Paul Miller. Both were very helpful about location of trout and what was likely to work….buzzers fished slowly. I was most interested with Basil’s suggestion that the best time on Corrib for dry fly fishing is probably August or September. I will maybe take advantage of that later in the year!
Back from Corrib I was on Chew or Blagdon most days in May and so far most days in June. May was remarkable, mostly for how cold the wind was. Day after day I was out wearing five layers minimum, and quite often six. The wind was almost always from the west – not normally noted for such cold winds! Even now in June there are usually cold winds to end most days, and it is a brave man who goes out on a boat without a few layers as back-up.
I waited in vain for much surface activity in May. I had odd evenings when the last hour would produce half a dozen chances as a few hardy trout rose – especially in the sheltered spots around the lakes. But, on the whole there was little surface feeding and only very rarely during daylight hours. Things changed a couple of weeks ago and on the last ten trips I have not even had to consider using a nymph! It has been excellent fishing on Chew as many days produced fine dry fly sport. One of the best days so far was the one that coincided with the BRFFA Orvis Classic Competition. I happened to be taking the Orvis supremo Richard Banbury that day and from almost the start we had fish to cover. Richard performed admirably by capturing eight fish – with one going 5lbs 7oz. His total for the eight fish was over 27lbs. Every fish that we caught that day was covered, yet remarkably when we chatted to anglers later in the day, many had not seen any fish to cover.
The Barrow Tanks are a favourite “escape” for me for when I have no clients and so I started having a look up there about a month ago. Sadly the cold wind had exactly the same effect on the fish here as on the larger lakes and on the first two trips I barely saw a fish. Even last week there were relatively few fish moving, though a few coming blind. I introduced client Marc Freeman to number two tank a couple of weeks ago and on a poor night he managed to land two decent fish for the tanks – both over two pounds. Marc thought that there was a decent rise, though as he has not seen the place on form he wouldn’t know what it can be like.
I have managed another couple of “escape” trips to the river Usk. These have been fun and each time the river has shown just how healthy it is as there have been great fly hatches and decent amounts of trout rising. Just last week I was near Crickhowell and I had a great time with several fish returned up to about two pounds. I don’t take fish from the river as they are wild fish and don’t need me to be denting the stocks!
I have a trip to Ireland next week for the caenis feeders so I am hoping for some settled weather. I am not sure what the chances of that are!
March in Spain
- At April 04, 2015
- By admin
- In Travel
- 0
On the 23rd March I took the plunge and set off to Extemadura with regular client John Wingrove. John is on a great amount of medication for various problems and so this was a trip undertaken with reservation. However, I had employed the assistance of my friend and local guide, Luis Meana, the master fly tier who specialises in the “paradon de Meana”. Luis is obsessed with the fly from the coq de Leon and has virtually devoted his life to making his flies more widely known. Last November he had to cancel joining me on a fishing trip because he was invited to present a talk and demonstration on his flies in New York, and next weekend he heads off to do something similar in Denmark. I can recommend his book all about the subject – “The Paradon de Meana and the Feather of Gallo de Leon”. You can check out his website www.cotossalmoneros.com” for a lot more information.
We met Luis at Madrid and were soon speeding down the motorway to La Siberia. This is a part of Spain rarely visited by tourists. It is, as its name suggest, remote, and wild. However it is truly beautiful. And the system of reservoirs is just stunning. It really is a fisherman’s dream to visit such a place. Many barbel fishermen know all about Orellana and I have previously fished Cijara. In Cijara there are some great pike, a lot of black bass and a somewhat puzzling amount of barbel. I was first put onto fishing Cijara by Andy Lush (you may know him as the owner of “The Friendly Fisherman” fishing store). He had discovered barbel fishing there many years ago and these barbel were avid feeders on surface flies! That to me sounded too good to be true so it was not long before I was booking a trip and heading out there. Well, on arrival we found few barbel – apparently all spawning, though I have my doubts on that, but many black bass which were really keen on taking fly, and so we had a great holiday fishing for this strange fish.
I have returned several times to fish for barbel with dry fly and always managed to find some feeders. As Andy suggested to me way back, these barbel just love a surface fly! It seems so odd. You can watch the fish cruising and occasionally grubbing around on the bottom, but put an ant pattern, or a beetle over them and you have a good chance of them taking this imitation. For a couple of years this has puzzled me as I have never seen a barbel rise to a natural fly. But, on this trip with John I saw this happen regularly. IN fact on the one day when the temperature reached around thirty, there were many different insects around and obviously some of them fell on the surface of the lake. The barbel didn’t miss out on this opportunity. John and I had good sport with the fish – and, all were caught on dry flies.
We caught two species of fish. The small headed barbel (microcephalous) and the Comizo barbel. Luis actually has a theory that many of the fish that we think are comizos are in fact hybrids, I leave that disection to him. All I can tell you is that this is seriously good fun fishing. I would suggest that the fish that are rising are easy enough to catch….the problem is that they are usually way out in the lake. If they move close enough to the bank then you generally get a response. However, the real challenge of this fishing is to work on those fish that are cruising the margins. These fish are looking for feeding areas. They often stop and start feeding on the bottom. Sometimes they feed like bonefish (in many ways they are very like bonefish, not least the first run that the microcephalous makes) and show their tails as they are feeding. A cast in front of these fish sometimes produces a reaction. If it does not, then it may pay to present the fly a little “heavier” in order to distract the fish from its feeding on the bottom. Of course this comes with the risk that you may completely frighten the fish away, but, hey, there will be another chance a hundred metres along the bank…
The most important aspect to this fishing is getting the conditions right – though isn’t that the case with most fishing? The BEST fishing conditions in Extremadura are bright sunshine and calm! These conditions give you the most amazing spotting conditions. The lakes are clear anyway, but with the sunshine that we had on the final two days, it was often possible to make out a fish moving along the bottom at over fifty metres. The shallow margins are the first parts to warm up and so the fish take advantage of this as soon as the sun gives off some heat.
John had two great days of fishing and managed to catch nine fish. Several of them took him well into his backing. His best fish would have been around five pounds. We both fished with five weight rods, tapered leader and tippet around 10 pounds. The flies are fairly big (beetles on a size 10 or 8 and the ants and grasshoppers are on a longer shanked hook about a ten) and so there is no point on fishing any lighter. The fish don’t seem too worried by the thick tippet. There are few obstructions in the lake, but often there are plenty behind you. I can highly recommend a trip out there. Personally I cannot wait to get back.
Finally I must say that those of you who are interested in the wildlife aspect of your sport, then this is a MUST trip to do. The birdlife is amazing. I saw many species that I have never encountered before – including a pratincole, a crag martin, serin, and Imperial Eagle. I heard cuckoos each day, saw hoopoes and azure winged magpies, and spectacular butterflies including swallow tails. And storks can be seen nesting on all sorts of odd places, including a huge crane!
February in Cuba
- At February 26, 2015
- By admin
- In Travel, Uncategorized
- 0
I couldn’t get my usual spot in Cuba this year so I booked in for a month earlier. The group met up at Gatwick after check-in and once we had ensured that a decent supply of “whicky” (as the Cubans call it) was bought, we settled for a chat over a departure refreshment. This year there were seven of us. Crooky as usual, Simon Hodges and Andrew Barker who both came last year, and new to our party, Matthew, John and James.
The flight seemed longer than usual, maybe we were all so looking forward to this particular trip! But, on reaching Havana we were through the immigration ever so quickly as I had made the decision to book at no great expense the v.i.p. “meet and greet” service. I wholeheartedly recommend this service as later in the trip I spoke with a couple of people who were on our flight and they took over two and half hours to clear immigration. We were in the lounge awaiting our bags within half an hour, and we were able to get a cool beer in the air conditioned lounge!
Money changed and bags loaded off we went to Caleton. The driver was as slow as any I have encountered in Cuba, but I guess he was at least pretty safe. A quick snack greeted us at our Casa and then we hit our beds.
The guides were waiting for us next morning as we headed down the long track to La Salinas. As per the night before Camillo – our driver, was very cautious and this meant that the journey to fishing each day would be over an hour. However the coach was fairly comfortable and we could chat and sort out gear and leaders if we wanted to and one or two of the group would usually catch up on sleep.
First day on the flats was wonderful. It was so good to be back there again. Everyone caught fish that day, though the newcomers experienced much frustration as they attempted to cast at the “ghosts” that the guides were repeatedly pointing out! By the end of the week all of the guys were spotting some fish and catch rates improved.
James had a superb jack crevalle of about twenty pounds on day three . This fish was caught on his eight-weight bonefish outfit and took him at least an hour to land. John caught the largest bonefish which measured 57 cm, and so would have been around 6.5lbs – great achievement on his first trip. Simon had the most bonefish for the week, whilst on one day alone, Andrew managed to catch 24 bonefish! Strangely, that day I managed not one bonefish, though I did catch my first shark on a fly.
There were several decent barracuda caught by the party, one or two decent snapper and many odds and ends. Tarpon were few and so we opted out of trips to the river. Crooky managed one tarpon as did James. My day on the river resulted in quite an amazing hook-up! I had stopped for lunch with my guide Jasil next to an old hulk half sunken. I had hoped that there would be a few snapper around and had changed from my 400-grain line with a black death fly, to a floater and clouser minnow. There were no snapper around so we relaxed and had our rolls. Then I spotted a fairly decent snapper appear from under the stern of the boat. I dropped the closer towards the fish and it took instantly. At that moment a juvenile pelican flew into the bay and immediately seized my fish! I was now playing a pelican instead of a snapper. Eventually I wrestled the snapper out of the bird’s pouch and managed to swing it in before the pelican was able to grab it again. The fish lost a few scales but seemed untroubled by the attention that the pelican had given it!
We experienced some unseasonably cool weather this year and several mornings and evenings had to don a sweater or fleece as all of our meals were served outdoors as is the norm. We even had to wear an extra layer on a couple of mornings on the flats. However, by one or two every day temperatures were hitting 26 plus, and we often went over 30 degrees. The flats took longer to warm up than any trip I have done so far, and so it was no great worry to pole out for a long time (and distance) as there were often few fish in until the water warmed.
I saw permit on day one and day two. The first day the fish were already disturbed and chasing about in an odd fashion. On casting in front of one of the fish it headed straight towards my fly but turned around and set off for the horizon at an amazing speed. The two fish I saw on day two were feeding and oblivious to my guide and me. I managed a decent cast and one of the fish swam over to my fly but didn’t pick it up. However it was not disturbed so I had another shot. This time the fly was ignored, so I went a third time. Again one of the fish came to the fly, but again it failed to take. Another couple of casts did nothing and then the fish just moved steadily away. I’ll get one yet!
I tried to book the place for next year as we all get on so well with the guides and the lovely people who run our casa, but no bookings are being taken. IT seems that as the market is opening to the Americans, the fishing lodges and operations are beginning to realise their potential and so are making plans to capitalise on things. So, I have made arrangements to return in late October through to early November as the operation I use will still be available then. Anyone interested in that trip please let me know as soon as possible. I will be emailing my regular clients with details.