Unfortunately the game fishing where I live is next to non existent, so without a long drive the opportunities to fish for the wild brown trout will be few and far between. With this in mind I decided to set off in search of other species that may be interested in taking the artificial fly. In the past I have fished a stretch of river not too far away that has always been kind to me with plenty of chub and barbel. I decided that I would try to catch my first coarse species on the fly and the chosen target was the chub.
I arrived at the river after work for a short evening session, I started off fishing with some streamers that I had tied up ( now a novice fly tyer too ). Having caught tons of chub on crankbaits from the river in the past I thought that this would be the best form of attack. How wrong could I be, the river was very low and clear and every time I happened upon a chub and got close enough to cast the fly at them they spooked and shot off out of the swim. With the river only averaging perhaps 18" deep and being very clear I was struggling BIG TIME. This scenario of walking the river, seeing a chub, casting at the chub, spooking the chub continued fro a couple of hours. Even though the surrounding were stunning and there was not another sole to bee seen on the 2 miles or so of river that I had walked along, I was starting to get a bit frustrated.
It was off with the streamer and on with a small balloon caddis dry fly ( I had tied five of these the previous evening) After working my way down the small meandering river I spotted what looked like a decent chub just holding in about 1ft of slow moving water. I cast just upstream of the chub and watched as the fly drifted back towards him. At first he didnt seem interested but as the fly neared him he moved towards it...alas only slightly. I put in a second cast, again upstream and let the fly find its way back to the chubs lie. This time he lifted of the bottom slowly and had a really good look at the fly...but didnt take it.
By this time I was actually getting a bit nervous, after hours of spooking chub, this one didnt know that I was there and was actually starting to look like he may take the fly. Third cast into near enough the same spot and the "bushy" offering drifted back towards the chub. This time he rose in a more determined fashion and in what seemed like slow motion he sipped the fly of the surface and began to sink back into the depths. I struck with my new 10ft 3# rod and then all hell broke lose. The chub screamed off heading for a submerged tree trunk that was clearly visible mid river. I hung on and eventually turned him, after a few more strong lunges form the fish I was starting to get a semblance of control. After a short but hectic fight I netted the first "coarse" fish that I had caught on the fly...I couldnt have been happier, even more so with it coming to a home tied fly. It wasnt the biggest chub iv ever caught and I didnt bother weighing it but would say it was somewhere between 3 or 4 pounds. Never the less I was very happy to get off the mark.
And the home tied fly that the chub couldnt resist
Not the neatest of flies and a little battered, but for a newcomer to fly fishing and tying I was happy with the outcome.
I continued to use the dry fly for what was left of the evening and managed to grab another new fly species with a nice dace. Just before last light and on the way back to the car, I found a pocket of faster water and saw something splash. A quick "one more cast" resulted in a grayling of about half a pound. I stayed fishing in the fast water until I couldnt see the fly anymore and managed about half a dozen nice grayling.
All in all it was a good end to what started off a difficult session.
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