What a week it’s been so far. Totally scunnered as I had the week off work and was looking forward to a lot of fishing, spoiled by what has to be the worst weather at the start of May I can remember.

I’m not normally a fair-weather fisherman. You’ll see me breaking ice, wringing out the socks and boxers (not a sight you’d want to see) and braving the strongest gales all in the name of a days fishing but the wind and rain this week was a bit much. And I’m not exactly someone who gets blown over in a breeze.

Or so I thought.

Anyway, I’m back to work tomorrow, so I was determined to wet a line today, no matter the conditions.

On my arrival Bruce in the lodge told me that the fishing for those who had braved the elements in the past few days has been very good! And, sure enough, when I spoke to a few of the folks at the fishery, all had caught – both on the bait pond and the fly, and all in really testing conditions.

Gazing into my palm.....I see a very fishy future!

Also when I arrived, Wendy had received a new batch of flies for the shop and she asked me to take a look to see what I thought.

They looked pretty good, and one in particular caught my eye.

Now what I really liked, apart from the unusual colour, was that it was a competition style fly, ie not too long in the tail and with a regular length hook.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been touching a lot of fish with lures but not hooking into them. I remembered an article from one of the trout fishing magazines that explained that sometimes fish nab at the tail, so it could be an idea to nip the length of the maribou tail and that has been working for me.

This fly being ‘pre-nipped’, as well as the fact that Wendy said “Aw…that’s a nice fly….looks like papa smurf!” made me take one to try out (if you don’t know who papa smurf is, ask someone over…er…um….Wendy might read this…er…21!)

Now you’ll maybe think I’m at it here…but God’s honest truth, I had my three fish within the hour and returned a further four.

Well let me be completely honest. It took me 45 mins to get into my first fish using a black and green humi because I was convinced that particular colour combination would work in the dull conditions.

After I caught the first however, I thought, “what the hell…give the wee smurf a go”.

The wee smurf in action

Result? Two further fish in ten minutes then a further four over the next hour.

It just goes to show that we shouldn’t be afraid of trying new flies from time to time.

I had a great day today, one of my best in a while and yet I still feel scunnered.

Why?

I could have been smurfing to fill the net everyday this week instead of surfing the net indoors!

 And on that smurfing dodgy ending, I’ll get my coat, and wish you tight lines….whatever the weather!