Fishing Sense Extract

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In his eighth book, Philip Weigall distils some information every flyfisher needs to know, and in typical Weigall fashion, he tells a great story along the way.

‘After decades of flyfishing, I find that much of what I learn and discover only leads to more questions, in large part because, as hard as I try, I cannot actually get inside the head of a fish, or in this specific case, a trout.

So rather than making any claim to have ‘nailed’ flyfishing for trout in a single book, this one is simply about those things that have become, if you like, my flyfishing ‘truths’. It’s a collection of techniques, ideas, concepts, knowledge and equipment that, to the best of my objective observation, honestly seem to matter when it comes to catching trout.’

Praise for Philip’s previous book, Fishing Season: ‘This book captures much of the essence of fishing.

It may well become a classic.’ — John England ‘This is a rare book, one that can be enjoyed by both fishers and non-fishers alike.’ — Freshwater Fishing

shing.com w.exislepubli

921497926

ISBN 9781

Philip Weigall

Philip Weigall is a flyfishing guide and instructor at Millbrook Lakes, Victoria, and otherwise fishes and travels as often as he can. Philip has been writing regularly on all things flyfishing for twenty years. He is presently a columnist and feature writer for Freshwater Fishing magazine, and editor of Flyfisher magazine. His previous book with Exisle Publishing was the acclaimed Fishing Season.

142mm

Fishing Sense

73mm

142mm

Fishing Sense

Philip Weigall

73mm

It’s a fact of flyfishing that there is no prescriptive manual for ensuring success. It is an activity that defies simple evaluation, with enough variables to leave even the ‘experts’ scratching their heads from time to time. For example, why is it that a trout will respond to a certain fly one day, but ignore it entirely in identical conditions on another day? Respected flyfishing author Philip Weigall attempts to answer this question and many more in this engaging book.

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1214-EXP-FS-Final:Fishing Sense Paperback 29/03/11 10:48 AM Page vii

S T N E T N O C INTRODUCTION ⟎ 1 ⟏ A BIT ABOUT TROUT ⟎ 7 ⟏ FEEDING ⟎ 19 ⟏ HIDING ⟎ 26 ⟏ A TROUT’S YEAR — AUTUMN AND WINTER ⟎ 33 ⟏ A TROUT’S YEAR — SPRING AND SUMMER ⟎ 48 ⟏ RETRIEVES ⟎ 59 ⟏ DRIFTS ⟎ 69 ⟏ MICRO-PRESENTATION ⟎ 79 ⟏ COVER ⟎ 91 ⟏ CONDITIONS ⟎ 100 ⟏ WATER TEMPERATURE ⟎ 106 ⟏ BAROMETER AND MOON ⟎ 122 ⟏ LIGHT ⟎ 129 ⟏ ON THE LEVEL ⟎ 140 ⟏ FISHING PRESSURE ⟎ 150 ⟏ STRIKING ⟎ 157 ⟏ PLAYING TROUT ⟎ 166 ⟏ TIPPET ⟎ 173 ⟏ THE TRIP ⟎ 178 ⟏ A WORD ON MEASUREMENTS ⟎ 185 ⟏ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ⟎ 187 ⟏ INDEX ⟎ 188 ⟏

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Introduction

NOT LONG AGO I was on the Motueka River in the north of New Zealand’s South Island. At the beginning of that April day, my friend Felix and I had enjoyed modest success drifting nymph patterns deep in the faster runs. However, as the hours passed the early chill faded.

We decided it was time to stop nymph fishing and drive upriver, searching for the dimples of trout rising to mayfly in the long flat pools by the roadside. After a couple of kilometres we found such a pool. Even from up on the road we could see at least a dozen trout swirling and sipping away. Unfortunately though, the pool was already taken. As we watched, a spin fisher appeared from beneath a poplar tree, threw his lure right across the densest concentration of fish and urgently cranked it back. We should have kept driving and found some fish of our own, but the sight of so many trout feeding so perfectly exerted a primal pull, and we watched for several minutes as the spin fisher reeled cast after harmless cast through the rises.

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Fishing Sense

As certain as the flow of the river, the spinner’s attempts were futile.

I understood this fundamental fact because similar experiences, multiplied by hundreds, were what persuaded me to take up flyfishing so many years ago. Unless the stranger accidentally jagged a trout, I knew he wouldn’t catch one. The fish were blind to anything but the small insects (probably mayfly) drifting down the current, and nothing but a fly would fool them.

I guess part of the reason Felix and I watched for as long as we did was the hope the spin fisher would give up and leave the pool to us.

But when he made his third lure change, we grudgingly accepted this was an unlikely outcome, and so we drove off again to find a stretch of our own.

Fortunately, about a kilometre further upstream, we found an even better pool. We could glimpse the odd rise from the road through gaps in the yellowing willows, but it was only when we actually walked down to the river’s edge and had a clear view of the 300-metre-long pool that we realised what we’d found. Never mind a dozen trout, there must have been hundreds rising along the length, and across a good deal of the breadth, of the pool. The cause of the frenzy was an endless stream of little blue-grey mayfly duns.

I strode to the river and tied on a size 14 Parachute Adams, which seemed a good approximation of the naturals. It turned out the fly pattern was right but the size wasn’t. As often happens when trout are feeding on thousands of the one kind of bug, they form quite a clear image of what the next one should look like — and size 14 was one size too big. Fortunately I wasn’t stubborn enough to persist once the fly was rejected a few times. A change to a size 16 was like

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A Bit About Trout

IT WAS BARELY the end of winter and Greg and I had ended up at Lake Echo in Tasmania’s Central Highlands based on a mixture of hunch and logic. Earlier in the trip we’d concentrated on Arthurs Lake and Penstock Lagoon. ‘Up top’, these two lakes are the most sheltered, however during the gales that sweep the highlands, shelter is a relative term. The sky and the water were the same dull shade of grey, but for the streaks of white foam scarring the latter. It was hard to stand up and even harder to cast. We rarely saw a trout before we hooked it, and those few we caught were really just moments of random optimism, not clues to how or where we might catch more.

Those occasional trout provided just enough impetus to persevere for the next hour or two.

There was some sense of satisfaction in catching anything at all under such trying conditions, and the highlands have a wild beauty that isn’t diminished by bad weather. Nevertheless, when the gale was

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