If there is one thing that I have learned in my long angling lifetime
it is that the most certain thing about our sport is its glorious uncertainty.
Only a novice uses words like ‘never’ or ‘always’
to talk or write about angling, and the most that you can truthfully say
is that some things in the sport happen ‘quite often’ or ‘not
very often’.
There are, however, a few things about angling that I have become completely
convinced about, even though by no means everyone that I meet at the waterside
agrees with me about these things.
The most important thing that you can do to improve your chances of sport
with decent-sized fish is to understand that when you are not doing well
in fishing by far the most common thing that is responsible for the slow
sport is that either you, or others nearby, are scaring the fish before
you even start to cast a bait to them.
Bright clothing, especially bright, or worse still, white shirts, are
sport killers and moving about a lot and standing up silhouetted against
the skyline is foolish, though lots of anglers do this.
Where fly fishing is concerned some people tell you that the colour of
your actual fly line is not important and that it is alright to use those
bright, almost fluorescent, floating lines that are in the shops. That
is rubbish.
On sunny days a bright line flashes when you are casting with the common
background of trees even though it does not show up against the skyline
once the cast is finished and it lies on the water surface.
Finally something that I have written many times but few anglers take
notice of it.
For some reason that I do not fully understand when you are fishing with
artificial crane flies, or daddy longlegs as we call them, if you tie
an imitation with a bright green fluorescent body, even though natural
flies are not that colour, you are likely to have a lot more trout take
your fly than when using drab-bodied daddies.
And then there’s the question of luck in angling. Isn’t it
annoying when people ask you: “Have you had any luck?”
Of course luck does sometimes play a part in our sport and we are all
the better for understanding this.
But the most accomplished anglers employ skill and knowledge.