Nick Thomas explores fishing on your own and draws some really interesting conclusions
“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
“We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would only attend to it, than any other person can be.”
Jane Austen
Autumn is a reflective season, a time for looking backward and looking forward. The bright colours of autumn are a celebration of spring and summer past and a herald of the change in fishing in the coming colder days. Time to put away the dry flies, the carp and chub beetles and the saltwater streamers, and get to the tying bench to refill boxes of nymphs and bugs for grayling and stillwater trout. For me autumn is always a time to take stock of fishing through spring and summer and plan for those seasons next year.
This autumn I’ve been thinking about the way I fish. I mostly fish alone. Occasional chance meetings with friends or new acquaintances on the bank make a pleasant diversion from the principal focus of the day; catching up rather than catching fish. These interludes add additional spice to the dish of fishing in solitude.
When you go fishing there are two different aspects of the brain in play; the emotional ‘I want’, and the technical ‘how do I?’. It’s the achievement of combining an emotional need with a successful technical solution that gives a satisfying day’s fishing. In many ways this internal balance is similar to the parts played by each partner in a client and guide relationship. The client wants a good day's fishing and the guide wants to provide the knowledge and technical input to achieve it. However when you fish alone there can be an internal conflict when things are not going well. The emotional side that was looking forward to a much anticipated day is disappointed that things are not playing out as imagined. No fish, wrong weather, making mistakes; all of these can lead to a sulk of despondency which blocks out the technical part of the brain and results in automaton fishing. I see this a lot on both lakes and rivers; anglers turn up, fish with their usual method and in the absence of any fish keep plugging away in an isolation bubble which seems to shut out any input that might give a clue as to how to improve the situation. This inertia; not moving, not changing tactics, creates a spiral of decreasing fishing effectiveness.
So when you fish alone it’s easy to fall into bad habits; you can get lazy and if the usual stuff isn’t working you carry on thrashing the water in the hope of a fish. That’s fine if you’re out for a quiet day and don’t want to exercise the stuff between your ears too much. But what if it’s affecting your fishing pleasure? Are you going to end the day less relaxed than when you started? What can you do about it? What would you do if your livelihood depended on having a successful day out? What do I do? I invoke the imaginary client. I imagine what I would do if I were guiding a friend or a paying client who would not be greatly impressed with “Well I’m buggered if I know what to do now”.
"when you fish alone there can be an internal conflict going on when things aren't going well"
If you recognise this situation occurring get tough with yourself, chance tactics, try something new or radical. Not necessarily as tough and radical as the bloke I came across on the Taff back in March nymphing for grayling in mid-stream in bare feet and rolled up trousers because he’d forgotten his waders. Actually this happened twice in a couple of weeks, different anglers on different stretches of the river; they makes ‘em tough in Wales, see.
So if you want to improve your fishing skills, your satisfaction of a job well done at the end of the day and your appreciation of all things around you when on the bank or the river, then learn to deploy your internal client. Always have some alternatives up your sleeve for when things aren’t going to plan. Build up your experience on different waters with different flies and tactics. Put these in the skills bank to be brought out when you need them.
When you are out fishing try to do something different every trip. You can do this when:
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You’re having a good day and for the last hour or so instead of carrying on fishing the same way actually stop using the method that’s working and experiment. You may find a new approach to use when times are hard and your imaginary client isn’t catching. This is when I try out prototype flies; much better to fish them in confidence when you know you have fish in front of you than in desperation.
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When things aren’t working. Stop thrashing the water with the same flies and method and try something completely different. Move to a different place. Do something, anything! Break out of that automaton cycle; the ‘it worked well last week’ syndrome.
Of course it's human nature to usually take the latter option. No-one likes to stop catching fish on the chance that something else will work; ‘If it aint broke don’t fix it’. Right? Well no, because if you don’t know how to fix it you won’t know what to do when it doesn't work and your imaginary client is looking to you for guidance on what the hell to do next.
How do you prepare to guide your imaginary client? Carry a few extra different types of flies and leaders that will let you ring the changes of offerings to the fish. I always have something different tucked away in the corner of each of my fly boxes. My trout dry fly boxes each have a couple of weighted streamers that can be cast to deep holes if nothing’s rising. My carp bug boxes have some smaller dries, nymphs and lures which could be used for perch, roach and rudd if the carp aren’t playing ball. Carrying a selection of leaders in a leader wallet allows me to switch presentation tactics. Short line river nymphing techniques will work on stillwaters, slowly dragging a cased caddis or shrimp along the bottom in deep water close to the bank has got me a few trout on otherwise dour days. Fishing spiders downstream suspended on a washing line rig behind a big foam beetle can be just as effective in shallow river runs as nymphs hanging behind a booby are on a reservoir. Being prepared can not just save a blank, but give you the pleasure of saving the day for your ‘client’ with a hard won fish; one of the greatest pleasures in fishing.
I guess all of this might best be illustrated with a couple of examples from my fishing earlier this year. First let’s go to a carp lake in early May. The weather forecast was promising a warm day with sun and little wind, ideal for the first carp of the season. I walked around the lake to my usual spot where open banks allow a long line to be cast out to a shallow plateau towards the the middle of the lake where the water quickly warms in the sun forming a good holding spot for carp. By the time I’d set up the forecast and actuality were somewhat at odds; a strong easterly wind running down the lake was chilling the surface and dragging the fly line and fly quickly into the margins. No fish were showing on the surface and I couldn’t keep the fly in one place long enough to tempt one up from deeper water. In the past I’d caught many fish from this spot and the temptation was to wait it out repeatedly stripping in and recasting the fly in the hope that some fish would show up. That’s what I did, up and down the bank, for three hours, without sign of a fish. Typical automaton fishing. You know you’ve made the wrong decision, you know you should have gone after trout on the river and you know it’s too late to pack up and go home for a different set of gear. So you carry on plugging away.
"several eons passed and the fish came around again, this time on a direct interception route"
Time for the internal client. I packed up all my gear and went for a walk round the lake looking for somewhere else there might be some catchable fish. At one end the lake narrows into a long thin reedy bay surrounded by dense woodland. Here an overgrown path of sorts leads around the bank under overhanging oak trees and conifers past the last swim used by the bivvied anglers fishing boilies towards a small island. I dumped all my stuff on the ground and pushed through the bushes into a jungle that was the last place you’d want to be waving a fly rod around. After about thirty yards I emerged at the end of the bay and there in a patch of dappled sunlight were three carp cruising along within a few feet of the bank among some water lilies. There was no way I could cast any distance and the bushes overhanging the edge of the water would quickly snaffle any roll cast fly. However I reckoned there was one place that a fly could be flicked out a couple of yards beyond the rod tip which might just be enough. A stealthy retreat for the gear followed; well, stealthy on the way out, not so much on the way back. Threading a rigged fly rod and a six foot carp landing net handle through the bushes and brambles was not a particularly elegant nor quiet process.
Eventually I got back to my chosen gap in the shrubbery and knelt down to wait. The group of carp were still swimming around on a lazy looping patrol always frustratingly just out of range of any possible cast. Every now again one of them, a large darkly coloured common, would divert from the others and swim a bit closer to the bank. If I was going to get a carp today it would have to be that one. I cut off the deer hair dog biscuit imitation I’d been flogging to death out on the main lake and tied on a small Popeye foam beetle. With just a few feet of fly line out of the tip ring I manoeuvred the rod through the trees and jiggled the leader and fly onto the water. There was just room to raise the rod enough to straighten everything out and then make a kind of roll-flick to extend the tippet out into the cruising path. The big common swam past totally unconcerned without even a passing sideways glance at the fly. I waited in the bushes with sweat running into my eyes and flies buzzing around my ears. The next time round the fish was further out passing by again untroubled by my offering and now I was beginning to develop a serious headache through clenching my jaws so tightly.
Several eons passed and finally the fish came round again, this time directly on an interception route to foam and hook. In my heart I wasn’t really expecting to hook it; carp are notoriously difficult takers of surface baits and flies and can spit out anything remotely suspicious at lighting speed. However this one must have been feeling very secure and mellow that afternoon and without altering speed or direction simply tilted up, inhaled the fly and swam on. I dabbed my index finger onto the line against cork, the leader came taught and a huge bow wave shot out across the bay. Much back and forth tussling ensued, followed by not a little cursing as I tried to insinuate the landing net through the same gap in the bushes as the rod. After some further anxious moments on a short line with rod jammed against an overhanging branch the fish slid over the rim of net and I flopped down in a sweaty shaking heap. My first carp of the year and both client and guide went off to the pub to celebrate.
Now we move to the river Taff, late afternoon on a hot July day. The river is low, very low; ridiculously low in fact. I’d fished all my usual runs and glides, those that reliably yield brown trout, sea trout, grayling and even the odd barbel and other surprises. Today? Nymphs, dry flies: nothing, zero, zilch, not a sniff of a fish. No fish rose in the sluggish pools and the usual ripply runs were braided trickles over sun bleached pebbles. What to do? Chuck it in, go home and enter ‘0’ in the fishing log? That would be the easy option; take the wader walk of shame back to the car along the cycle path past all the elegant ladies taking pooch and poop for walkies and the legions of lycra loined cyclists and joggers, and answer the inevitable ‘Any luck?’ through gritted teeth; ‘nothing today, too hot, too dry (insert other excuse here) I’m afraid’.
But no, the imaginary client wasn’t going to be having any of that. So what to do? Sitting with my waders steaming in the heat I remembered a day the previous year when I was walking way upstream. I’d spotted a run of water on the far side beyond the wide fast flow where water was diverted by a large rounded boulder lodged against an old wall, the lost remnants of the foundation of some long demolished structure from the river’s industrial past. The run had a short stretch of deep slow water but with enough pace on the edge of the faster stuff that it looked like it would be a good holding spot for grayling. At that time I’d passed on as under normal river levels the run was inaccessible or would require some very hairy wading to get to. Looking again at the river now I was imagining that stretch under the present conditions; the wide channel would be only a few inches deep over flat pebbles but against the far bank against the old foundation and in the shade of overhanging trees there might be fishable water. It would be a long walk and wade, but it might be worth a shot.
"The fish jumped and zig-zagged back and forth in the current before I managed to steer it into slower water"
A mile of bank and a couple of hundred yards of wading later I was standing at the edge of the deep pocket below the boulder. Usual summer tactics weren’t going to work here, so off came the furled dry fly leader and on with a winter braid nymphing rig with a heavy 4mm tungsten beaded nymph on the point. I lobbed the nymph a yard upstream into the slack water under the trees behind the boulder and tracked it round under the rod tip for a foot or so as it dropped through the current. The braid pulled tight, the rod tip stabbed down under the water and the line shot off downstream with the reel singing.
The fish jumped and zig-zagged back and forth in the current several times before I managed to steer it into slower water and bring it round with a sweeping curve of the rod tip to meet the swooping net. A quick photograph in the shallows and then cradling the fish in the current until it swam off back to the safety of the shadows under the trees preceded a big grin of satisfaction for today’s client. I took another trout and a big grayling from that short stretch of water no bigger than a bus. I made the long walk back to the car with springs in my wading boots.
So next time you’re out fishing alone and things aren’t going as planned just remember the imaginary client; he or she may save your day.
Nick Thomas lives in South Wales. He started fly fishing on Scottish hill lochs many years ago and continues to design, tie and fish flies for trout, carp, bass and anything else that’s going.