Do Your Flies up!...12-14/12/08

Sometimes the weather just falls into place for a fun weekend and looking at my local forecast it looked a belter – big, rough seas on Saturday with smaller swell on Sunday; I could just visualise a Yak Boarding session followed by a Codling bash…

…except I was already intending to be elsewhere, amongst friends, trying a brand new type of kayak fishing – Kayak Fly Fishing!

Kayakflyfisher had arranged for a group of us to meet up on a private Trout lake down in deepest Berkshire, the county of my forefathers (well, on one side) and so on Friday morning I found myself driving south far too early in anticipation of a weekend every bit as enjoyable as the one I would have had at home – but with more time on the water should I want it. I was loaded up with kayaks, paddles, fishfinders and assorted stuff as well as food, bedding and clothes. Three and a half hours later I turned down a muddy track, hopped out and wandered over to a hut where KFF, Darnsarf and Litl666 were already hitting the cuppas pretty hard, and it was not long before one was thrust into my hand. A quick fly casting lesson followed and I judged myself incompetent but able to hit the water from a kayak without missing.

People continued to drift in over the course of the afternoon and evening, usually proceeded by a phone call along the lines of:

“Dave, I’m at such and such a place, how do I get to your place?”

“No good asking me mate, I live in Southampton.”

Despite that, they all managed to make it here eventually and with dinner out of the way it was down to the serious business of opening the wine.

And Beer.

And Tequila.

And Brandy.

And Single Malt.

I must confess that not a single drop passed my lips. Honest! I kept it all down. Not long before three in the morning I decided to slur it a day and rolled out to my van where my sleeping bag awaited me.

I awoke four hours later to the sound of my alarm going off on the wrong day. I chose to ignore it in the hope it would go away. Ten minutes later it went off again. On the fifth round of attempting to wake me up I decided that I had to find it and switch it off, whereupon I went back to sleep to the soothing sound of gently drumming rain hammering down on the roof. Another hour or more passed before I crawled out and slithered up the now-muddy path to the lodge where a cuppa awaited and Cambornecaperpilot was getting ready to cook up a welcome breakfast. With that inside me I felt a million dollars. Sadly, the current exchange rate puts that at about three quid so I dragged myself into my drysuit, slung my Yak Board in the lake and paddled out to where I hoped the hungry Trout were. After blanking for a while I wandered about a bit to see how the others were doing:











About as well as me then!

I chose to take a Yak Board for a few reasons – firstly, my Trident and Prowler 15 are both overly large for the venue – an eight acre lake – and also have enough obstructions on them for the flies to hang up on. It appears from photographs that it was sitting somewhat low in the water at times but it was just right for the job – I could move all around the boat and fished facing from all sides of it at one point or another.

A burst of excitement – Sharkhunter had tempted a rainbow with a green Damselfly…the first fish out of the lake to us hardy paddlers, and a nice size too as it went to 2lb 5oz when weighed later.



I carried on fishing and although I had a swirl behind my hook before this, nothing else came along all day and so after my hands decided to rebel I went in for a coffee and a break before venturing back out again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon variously beating replica flies to death, paddling about, drifting and casting or watching Trout come to the surface and waggled their fins at me in the way a small child waggles fingers attached to the sides of their heads or the ends of their noses. Anyone would think that they were blind or wanted to live forever. Eventually I decided that enough was enough and I hauled myself out of the water and went to warm up, get out of my drysuit and prepare for an evening of banter, eating and drinking. This involved a hilarious tour of Berkshire in search for a Tesco three miles away and the hilarity of a foghorn deciding to go off in the back of the van ;D

A good barbecue followed…


…and I partook only of a single beer and half a glass of wine whilst downing plenty of Cokes as I’d have to drive home on Sunday. It appeared that Sharkhunter was set to win best fish, best bag, best team prizes all to himself! Not only that, he’d brought his camper with him and was the only one that could have a shower so, we carried on drinking and the banter at times got out of hand and had us in hysterics; a sample of our merrymaking provided below for those with broad minds…



It was an earlier night this time – people wanted to get out on the water earlier as it was close – only one fish separated the leader from the pack. Granted, it was the only one but it promised to be a more pleasant day on Sunday – did I mention that the rain only stopped on Saturday when the sky ran out of water during the night?

Up a bit earlier after a bloody cold night in the van (drysuit had fallen onto my sleeping bag whilst driving to Tesco) I went in and cooked breakfast for whoever wanted – a big pile of dead pieces of meat with toast was duly consumed and I watched as the others launched, including Santa n his way to invade the Island:



I stood and nattered to everyone, watched as Todaymueller caught a rival fish, loaded up my van and welcomed Starvinmarvin along.



He’s finally found a Kayak his size…



Around lunchtime I decided to head for home, three and a half hours away, so that I could see my daughters for a while before bedtime and get an early night myself. So with a final thank you to kayakflyfisher for organising a cracking weekend of banter, yakking, fishing and hilarity I climbed into the van and headed northeast. I’d watched the others go out that morning but had stayed ashore myself - I had discovered on Saturday that Fly Fishing is not for me, being far too refined and gentlemanly for a fishing thug such as myself, also I didn’t want to clamber into a cold drysuit and I wanted to avoid a definite blank on my hundredth launch of the year…my next one.