Pete Tyjas and James Beeson have their birthdays a day apart and like to go fishing to celebrate. This year they headed high up into Dartmoor in search of birthday trout.
Jimmy and I have our birthdays a day apart, the difference in age is greater but we have established a neat little tradition of going fishing together to celebrate the fact.
This year, April has been warm and dry and despite the fact I don’t usually start fishing Dartmoor until May we thought we’d give it a go.
I like to fish the well know streams like everyone else but we also have some little gems up our sleeves that see little by way of anglers. These are the places I really love. You have to walk a little to get to some of them but it is always worth it.
I picked Jimmy up, stopped off to buy some fresh from the oven sausage rolls and make the drive over to Dartmoor. It doesn’t take long from where Jimmy lives but on the way we decided we would fish Tenkara.
This minimalist style appeals to Jimmy to the extent that he has now jettisoned his waders preferring to wet wade with flats boots and flats trousers.
I am a little slower to fully embrace this and the thought of having to wade a little deeper in cold water doesn’t appeal to me just yet but as the season moves on it is something I will probably try too.
We usually fish side by side but a busy April work schedule and slightly less fishing means I am hungry to feel a fish on the line. While I set up I watch Jimmy catch his first fish. Over the last couple of years I have watched him develop into a talented Tenkara angler who fishes this method almost exclusively on the moorland streams. It makes sense as it is about as close as we have to the mountain streams of Japan that this technique was designed for.
I miss the first fish. It comes from nowhere, hits the fly and is gone again. Sometimes, the trout here like to try and drown the fly and I convince myself that is what this one has tried to do.
We fish the pools quickly, landing flies where we think the fish are most likely to be. The pools are small and so we make three or four casts and then it is time to move to the next. We leapfrog each other staying far enough apart that we don’t spook each other's water but near enough that we can see what the other is doing.
The next fish takes a little differently, it is a slower, positive take that leaves me the task of just lifting the rod. Jimmy sees the moment and I can see his smile of approval.
He is on fire and I sit on a rock for a few moments and watch him fish the pool in front of him. It is 15 feet in length with the main run against the opposite bank. The 11 foot rod he is using makes it easy to keep plenty of line off of the water and get the all important drag free drift down the pool. That is of course until a fish hits the fly.
This trout is like many of the others we encounter. Small, dark in colour and very, very feisty.
I take a picture and the fish swims away and hides under a rock.
I have been fishing a variant of an elk hair caddis. Jimmy fishes in true eastern style with a tenkara fly. I watch as he tells me about the differing methods of manipulating the fly and he fishes it both dry and wet. Both work.
I take down my rod and we revert to sharing a rod and using his fly. My natural instinct it to keep drying the fly but I can see why he tells me to try fishing it just subsurface. I love the way the partridge feathers move in the crystal clear water.
We fish one fish on, one fish off but if a pool is quiet we both fish a little longer but not long enough that it might be considered greedy.
The temperature rises and the bugs start to hatch. It isn’t a big hatch but I grab hold of a stonefly, take a look and open my hand for it to continue going about its business.
We reach a flat section of water that has a couple of rising fish but the fly landing on the water is enough to send the fish hurrying up the pool or in search of cover. It works like falling dominoes and we watch small bow waves ahead of us and decide to keep moving to find some faster water where the fish won’t get so long to think about whether they eat the fly or not.
The walk is only a quick 10 minutes and we are feeling better about where we are now standing. The odds are stacked more in our favour, not too much, just a little.
Until now we have not needed to get in the water but the pool we are standing in front of is a little longer and more importantly has three rising fish in it. I offer the pool to Jimmy as I am a gentleman and also I want to see how he copes with the wet wading. I’ll never know as he walks in without flinching and so he is either covering how cold he might now be feeling really well or perhaps it just doesn’t really bother him. He also catches two of the three fish.
The sausage rolls are still warm and the bag is a little soggy. They taste good and so do the cup cakes Jimmy has brought. There are four of them and we end up eating all of them.
They may not be a birthday cake but they are close.