I STARTED fly-fishing in earnest in my early teens when, with the money saved from ferreting – and rabbits were half a crown each back then – I was able to afford a decent fly-fishing outfit.
I was advised from the start to avoid fishing with the sun on my back – the reason was fairly obvious as my shadow would invariably fall on the water in front of me and frighten the fish. In those days I fished mainly small streams and therefore my approach was of paramount importance.
When Tony Blair became Prime Minister he listed his priorities as being “education, education, education”, and so it was with my angling teacher. To him there were only three rules – “keep out of sight of the fish” and by repeating the rule three times he ensured that it would be imprinted on my mind forever! And it is important that the trout does not in any way become aware of the angler’s presence.
I accepted the teaching as being gospel for a small river, and yet as the years progressed I have learnt there can be exceptions to the rule – as long as the shadow falling on the water is avoided, having the sun at your back can sometimes be an advantage.
If we transfer this assumption to our own visual experiences – and I realise it is often misguided to equate human and animal responses to similar experiences – we know that when the sun sits directly in front of us we are dazzled and we look for dark glasses or something to shade our eyes. If this is the form for the human eye, it must be something similar for the fish.
I recall one day working exceptionally hard to get my fly to cover a brace of good trout that were regularly feeding on every fly coming down river. I tried a few different patterns which I thought were fairly similar to those the trout were feeding on.
The sun was high in the sky and my shadow fell far short of where the fish were feeding.
Having had my offerings refused I sat down and tried to think out the reason for the failure. I watched closely and realised the fish were only taking flies in one particular section of the river and I remembered reading once of something called “the blur area” – that is the area between maximum glare and clear vision. Despite being rather dubious about the theory surrounding the “deception area” I must admit that it did work for me on that particular day.
I also remember fishing a river in Poland when during a practice session prior to the world championships we fished a pool with the sun at our backs and succeeded in taking three trout and three grayling by fishing a dry fly upriver in a normal manner. We then climbed up to the bridge overlooking the pool and two Norwegian fly-fishers had come along to the same pool for their practice session. They were good anglers and even though they fished upstream as we had done, they failed to get any sizeable fish.
We remained on the bridge and two Polish anglers approached the pool. They looked at the pool, and we seated on the bridge were interested to see what tactics the home nation anglers would use.
They fished it downriver with the sun in their faces and caught over two-dozen fish in no time at all. I knew the two fairly well as they had won the world championship in Wales the previous year and they maintained that the fish could see the fly better with their method.
The difference between success and failure can be very minimal when it comes to technique, but one golden rule – especially if you are in a fly-fishing competition – don’t be too traditional. Be ready to try something different because fish – according to Dai the hero of my boyhood days – are always as unpredictable as women!
Moc Morgan, Western Mail
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/
