A Cracking Start for Fly Fish Islay

Blimey! What a busy start to the summer. The weather has been terrible in the Staffordshire Moorlands, so it is with great fortune that Glen and I found ourselves spending much of the early summer enjoying the fine weather on the magical Isle of Islay with 3 separate groups of guests, all determined to enjoy themselves through catching a few wee broon troots and enjoying a wee dram or two...

We were joined on our Fly Fish Islay trips buy 3 groups of smashing ladies and gents from all over Europe. Some new to Islay, some new to fishing, some experienced anglers, all up for a good laugh.

I haven't had time to write blog posts after each of the trips, excepting the first in April but here follows a selection of pics....(There are many more on the Fly Fish Islay page on Facebook).....

Loch Gorm proved to be a favourite of many of our guests. Fished from boat with an outboard so as to cover as much of this vast machir loch as possible, Richie enjoyed 2 days on the loch and enjoyed some spectacular sport.....

A first for Fly Fish Islay was an outing to 3 hill lochs by way of Islay Estates' Argocat. Guests were guided by head game keeper Scott Brown. One of the lads had never fly fished before our May trip but he still managed to land a couple of stunners to around 2lb from these remote hill lochs.

Popular as ever as a fishing venue was the beautiful Loch Finlaggan, not least because Finlaggan House was our base during the May trip. On the last day we held a small comp....the winner would be the angler who landed the most fish in 4 hours. Kev Pollard came out tops and went away with a nice couple of drams and some cracking fishy memories.

A month later and another set of guests arrived. Glen had his eye on the sea fishing, he new that come June there would be more fish near the shore on the sea lochs. This our base was at Octovullin by Loch Skerrols.

Sean Ruffell carefully selects his weapon...a 28g Dexter Wedge.




















We arranged a clay pigeon shoot for the guests at Octovullin House. It was hilarious watching Pointon firing at clays with a semi automatic shot gun. Scott the keeper couldn't keep up with loading shells as Glen was firing it like a machine gun and still managing to miss.....

Plentiful brown trout were had from all of the lochs that our guests fished throughout the 3 trips, and all were amazed at the differences that could clearly be seen between the different strains of fish from each loch.

On the final day of the last trip we bumped into Justin Ruthven-Tyers at Islay Studios. Both Glen and I had recently finished reading his new book 'Phoenix From the Ashes' which is a belting read.......Justin lives on Islay with his wife Linda and their boat 'Caol Ila' can often be seen moored in Lagavulin Bay.

Justin was never really a joiner / carpenter before his house burned down and he decided to build a new one....oh, and he also decided to build a beautiful boat...'Caol Ila'...the book tells all and is an incredibly enjoyable read.....

The most memorable moment of all the trips this year has to be Glen catching a 2.5lb sea trout. I am proud to have shared the moment with him...read all about it on his blog....www.glenpointon.blogspot.com

I hope to update this blog on a more regular basis, but may just post pics and a few words from now on. Expect many more pics from Islay because as of this Saturday, I'll be living there....:-) :-) :-)

Slainte

Woody

The Upper Severn, Angling Heaven

Our local rivers were out of sorts this weekend, well, most of them anyway. Glen and I did think of going up to Dovedale or Milldale but we knew that, these being the most likely to be producing fish, there would be a fair few other anglers about, and there are only so many pools holding Grayling there to got at.

And so we mulled it over...over and over, Dovedale or Milldale or somewhere new? Would it be too far to go? Would there be too many other anglers there? What would the river be like? Would the conditions be good? Would it be worth the 2 hour journey at each end of the day?

Within two minutes, and two casts of reaching the Upper Severn, near Caersws in Powys, that last question was answered when I landed my first Grayling, and a cracking fish it was too.

Glen had picked me up at around 6.30am, we stopped for Bacon and Sausage baps on the way, and by 9am, we'd purchased our day tickets from the Spar shop in Caersws, tackled up and were ready to make our first casts. It was a little daunting at first, wondering where to start on this large river. Glen had been given one or two tips by the Bailiff and he'd told us a likely spot to get one or two fish under our belts to give us a little confidence for the rest of the day.

On arriving at the first pool, we instantly started to spot fish, the water being crystal clear. We soon found that these visible fish would not be playing ball, as they paid no attention to our nymphs whatsoever, and so we moved a little further downstream.

Glen started to take fish on his point fly, a JT Flashback, on a 3 fly Czech Nymph rig. I was also taking fish on the JT Flashback but on a duo rig. Both methods fished well. Glen and I both had fish to 1lb 8oz and by the end of the day, we'd managed about 35 fish between us.

We really enjoyed fishing the Upper Severn and will definitely be returning to this beautiful spot. It's certainly up there with the best rivers that I have ever fished. The water was gin clear, the wading was relatively easy, the river bed being largely free from bolders, branches, roots and other obstacles. Best of all, the fishing was ace, even the small Grayling of about 3/4 lb put up a huge fight, which was great sport on our light tackle.


We may be taking the 7 seater Wine Shop van next time so anyone who fancies joining us, leave me a comment.


David