Discovering the joy of fishing

Last November, I bought myself a winter rod at Albury, a pretty set of lakes in the Surrey Hills, for some displacement fly-fishing activity during the close season for river trout. Almost on my first cast a rainbow came up and took a dry fly (an emerger). This is going to be fun, I thought.

It was, of course, beginners’ luck. Dry flies, designed to sit on the surface and encourage fish to rise, are thrilling, but hardly ever work in winter, when few river flies hatch. On the next visit, I failed to spot a fish, except for a couple of solitary splashes out of range. I then bought a couple of hours tuition, learnt something about getting a fly down to the fish and managing to catch one during the lesson (none afterwards). Those fishermen who were catching were using dayglo lures. No pretence at imitating anything living.

My next visit was with my son, Arthur. It was perishing cold and I discovered I had left the reels at home. A kind angler lent us one, and with frozen fingers I managed to tie on the shocking pink lure he recommended. We thrashed the water at the top lake, where we could see the fish moseying about, but they remained uninterested. We returned home cold and fishless.

Mostly, the casting at Albury is easy, but at the top lake, just behind where you want to cast to the shoal, there are trees to eat your fly. On my next visit, having lost an emerger, I noticed a gold-headed damsel (only the fly, regrettably) caught at head height in the trees.

I confess to a sneaking superstition that the found fly somehow presents a better chance than one from the box. Shades of the ram caught in a thicket, perhaps. Even though a moment’s thought shows how absurd the idea is. Anyway, this fly was designed to look like the real thing (the damsel fly larva which the fish eat) so it was obviously more “natural” than a pink blob which is just to irritate them beyond endurance.

Now the temptation at a lake is to cast as far out as possible to maximise the water covered on retrieving line and in the belief that the big fish are in the middle. Perhaps they are. Who knows? The lake is roughly figure-of-eight, and I had a bright idea to cast close to the opposite bank from the thin part. My logic was that the fish would have seen many odd things travelling towards the bank, but not so many heading for the deeper water in the middle.

After half a dozen casts, I hooked a fish. It thrashed about and unhooked itself. Examining the fly (never skimp this bit) to check it was still on properly and not too bashed about, I noticed that it was barbless. Such hooks are generally used when the fish must be returned, since they obviously cause less damage. At Albury, the rules say you must keep what you catch.

Still, if one fish liked it, maybe another would. Half a dozen casts later, it did. There was a thump as the fish took, followed by a pause before the line tightened and the fish ran. It felt like a decent fish (technical term). It ran out my line, came rushing back, turned, twisted and dived. Knowing that one moment of slack line would be enough to slip the hook, I held on, reeling frantically as it came towards me, letting the reel sing when it turned away.

You lose any sense of time in these encounters, and I have no idea how long it was before I shovelled the fish into the net (at the second attempt), but I was exhausted. It was all I could do to pack up and weigh in. 4 1/2 lb of fit, fighting Rainbow. Hot smoked, it was delicious.