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The mysterious Mr Sardine and our knotty problem with a big bad Wulff
Now, I don't want you to think that I'm forsaking Yorkshire, but I've been down South again. Well, it just seemed a bit rude to refuse an invitation to fish the Dorset Frome with an old friend.
I might have to be a bit careful this month so, I'm going to change the name of my friend; no-one will know that on a warm May evening, a rather well-known angler made a fundamental mistake.
It was a beautiful late spring day; the mayflies hatched throughout the afternoon and were, fortunately, still on the water until late in the day. I say fortunately because our plan to arrive by the water during the early afternoon was doomed from the start. Perhaps we spent longer than necessary, sitting in his back garden, chewing the fat and putting the angling world to rights. Okay, so we did also invest a bit of time in trying out a new fly rod. Yes, it is important to find out if it can bend a line around a rose bush and drop the fly in the bird bath. And there were new fly designs to ponder and a revolutionary method of bite indication to contemplate.
Eventually, it became obvious that, if we were to have time to go fishing, we'd have to get a bit of a wiggle on. The promise of a chance to fish the Frome had haunted me during the winter months. The memory of freezing February days, devoid of sustaining pork pies, would fade as I dipped a wader in the gin-clear waters of that famous chalk stream. So it came to pass, that as the light faded, we both feverishly climbed into the breathables, and Giles assembled a fly rod. He chose the one that did so well, earlier, in the garden obstacle casting exercise. We shared a rod, simply because there was not time to make up another before it was too dark to see. My companion constructed a leader, finally tying a soft-wing Wulff to the tippet.
"One of the finest mayfly dun imitations you will ever use," assured Mr Sardine as he tightened the knot.
Two heads, simultaneously and cautiously, extended over the parapet of the old pack-horse bridge. In the shadows, inches from the ancient stonework, a trout was surreptitiously slurping the last mayfly duns of the day as they became trapped in a little eddy created by the buttress. Silently we walked downstream, finally slipping into the water 50 yards below the bridge. I lurked in the reeds while Giles made the first few casts across the river. With his usual consummate ease, he explored the margins of the river. Nothing. As we approached the bridge, the solitary trout was still enjoying his supper; the rod was placed in my hands. "You take that one," was the magnanimous offer from my companion.
Though I say it myself, it was a superb cast, it really was, the fly landed like thistledown, a couple of feet upstream of my target. As it floated over his head, the trout nonchalantly ate my offering as if grateful for the opportunity. I raised my rod to set the hook, felt a fleeting moment of resistance and then that sinking feeling as the line went slack. The tippet and fly were gone.
"Why can't you learn to tie ruddy knots?" I inquired. "'Ang on" came the reply, "you struck that fish far too hard." When we next met up, at Broughton show, the debate continued. Does Mr Roger Beck strike fish too hard, or is there a question about the knot-tying skills of one Giles Sardine?
Flies dressed by Stephen Cheetham. 0113 250 7244. www.fishingwithstyle.co.uk
Narrative by Roger Beck. 01439 788483. www.beckfisher.co.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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