Johannes Bulfin takes a look at why he loves fly fishing so much.
Early into a new season of trout fishing is as good a time as any to contemplate on the beauty and pleasure to be found in fly fishing. I am sure that fly fishing means different things to different people; chasing tarpon in the Florida Keys is very different to say, small stream fishing for trout in England but at the same time they probably have a lot in common too. At least the passion and enthusiasm of each fly fisherman will probably be equal no matter what the size or location of his quarry.
I think I can best describe the beauty of fly fishing through my own personal journey of discovery into the sport.
Interestingly (for someone who is Irish) I caught my first trout on a fly in South Africa, it was on a single buzzer fished on a floating line. The line was straight out in front of me and I saw it move before the rod was almost wrenched out of my quivering hands! I was shocked by the power of the angry fish but with the help of my gracious and patient mentor I eventually brought it under control and landed it. My heart beat was uncontrollable, my mouth was dry and I was shaking like a leaf! I sat down, tried to compose myself and failed. I’m glad no one recorded the gibberish I spouted! I could not get over what I had just experienced. That initial rush hooked me for a lifetime and keeps me going back to the water’s edge time and time again.
How was it so different to any other kind of fishing? I’d caught fish - and bigger- before but something was different about this. Well it’s all about the line isn’t it!? You are usually holding the line with the rod tip down when the magical moment of “the take” occurs, this means you feel the full electricity and vibrancy of the fish shoot straight into your finger tips and your very being without the dampening effect of reel handle and gears. Even the rod is so much softer which also adds to the smoothness and grace of fly fishing.
My casting is not good, at least not compared to my wife’s! Believe it or not she casts beautifully, textbook, 1 o’clock, 11o’clock, tight loops and delivering power into the line at precisely the right moment. She worked as an au pair for a casting instructor and learnt straight from the very best!!! But let us not get hung up on that, (unlike my casting that usually ends hung up in a tree somewhere...), but simply admit that casting is a thing of beauty and watching someone who can do it well is nothing short of therapeutic. When a cast lands perfectly as you intended, it gives immense satisfaction, I for one anyway just want to sit back and admire it! Only problem is the fact that at that precise moment a trout will probably grab your fly and break the trance. Ok it’s not a genuine problem, I know.
Perhaps a good indicator of my final demise into the clutches of my addiction that is fly fishing, came a couple of years ago. I think it must have been painfully obvious to everyone around for some time already before this....
Close to my parents' home is a river that gets a run of lake trout, they migrate up from the lake with the first summer floods. They behave in a very similar fashion to sea trout, in other words: wary and easier caught at night. So here goes, it is almost night when I begin but there is still paleness from the sky reflecting off the river. I am fishing a large single Black Pennell (best to keep things simple in the dark). The bank is high and covered in briars all the way down to the river; the water is fast below me but slows and deepens a little further downstream as it flows beneath an overhanging tree. I cast so that the fly lands close to the opposite bank just in front of the tree, immediately the fly disappears in a boil! It takes a total of two seconds for me to realise this is a big fish and I have no hope of landing it from where I am, something I stupidly didn’t think of before taking the cast!! So I throw my mobile phone out of my pocket and leap out over the briars into the river, it’s up to my waist but I hardly feel the cold. Needless to say I’m not wearing waders! This is however a good location to play the fish from and after a long few minutes I slip the hook out of stunningly beautiful trout of about two pounds!
The only way out is climbing through the briars up the bank... I eventually arrive back home looking like someone who lost an argument with an enraged badger and then got dumped in a river!
“What happened to you!!?”
“I caught an unbelievable trout!” I exclaim, before recounting the whole story.
“Well at least you got a nice trout for dinner out of it all.... right?”
“Oh no, I put him back again”.
I guess from a non-angling perspective it is lunacy and my dependency on fly fishing, its thrills and joys is complete.
Read more from Johannes at his Road to Water blog