The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

What would be your favourite style of fly fishing. Mines is down and across with a figure 8 retrieve.

I agree Ian it's a lovely way of fishing particularly when there's salmon and sea trout on the cards! If I had to pick just one form of flyfishing it would be from a boat drifing on a good loch in favourable wind

Liphook wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 4:43 pm I agree Ian it's a lovely way of fishing particularly when there's salmon and sea trout on the cards! If I had to pick just one form of flyfishing it would be from a boat drifing on a good loch in favourable wind

I’ve tried a boat drifting on a loch Liphook and I fair enjoyed it,especially with a good friend for company. I remember watching Paul youngs hooked on Scotland series when he caught a big wild brownie from a loch in Ireland that’s famous for big wild trout,though I doubt it’s the same these days.

Firstly, fishing from the bank on remote lochs in the Scottish Highlands, using such wet flies as Bibio and zulus, on the surface/sub surface, for wild brownies.

Secondly, fly fishing for pike using self tyed streamers, from my punt in several of the nearby weirs.

Both styles are very different yet equally enjoyable!

Afloat fishing a team of nymphs on a very long leader and watching the tip of the fly line for deviation or a slight straightening suggesting a fish has the fly. A lift of the rod tends to be enough to connect with the fish. It's magical when it all works and I think the approach is quite similar to float fishing for big roach.

Dry fly fishing with a slight ripple is also great fun. If I could do all my fishing on the surface be it for carp or trout I'd be very happy.

I still to this day hold the traditions that my grandfather taught me when he grew up in Scotland. It was dries and wets, always upstream. That is my preferred way to fish.
I do like to do the figure 8 retrieve, but my rivers are too fast in many places to do that correctly and keep up with the fly. But in slack river water it's wonderful when I can fish such waters. You have to remember that where I live, we have mountains over 14,000ft. so the gradient can make the rivers flow fast. But that also makes the trout more active and not as selective because they see the fly go by quickly and being an opportunist feeding machine, they will go after your fly. They try not to let anything go past them if they can. They must eat to survive in these waters.

Czech nymphing is alright and it certainly catches fish, but you lose something. Sure, it's up close and personal fishing, but the soul is gone, if you know what I mean. There's something about dries and wets that's just so set back in time. And that's what I love and why I joined this forum. It's the tradition of it all and the way I was taught.

It just came to me and it's a personal thing. My grandfather and I were very close. I loved and still love him dearly and miss him very much. So when I fish with dries and wets upstream, it's like I'm fishing with him again.

I also don't mind casting upstream at a 45* angle and having the flies come down just past me and then lift and cast again. Swinging flies is not in my vocabulary. My grandfather and Oliver Edwards must have gone to the same fishing school.

Upstream dry fly or dead-drifting a single buzzer :-)

Netheravon style upstream nymph. Klinkhamer.dry flies again fished in a manner approved by Frank Sawyer. That is fishing to sighted fish only in a Chalkstream, on a mild Summers day with a few fish and a well earned decent pint in a proper pub.

Heaven on earth, especially if a good pie enters the equation.

Days like this are treasured, making the day to day tedium, forgotten, if only for a few hours.

As ever,......

Moley