Variant Sea Trout Flies

Below are some sea trout flies I tied up in the last week in preparation for their arrival. A couple are running now with the milder weather, with one small one coming unstuck a few nights ago. Great to have the opportunity to go out again after the long cold spell, however the water is still on the high side.

As you can see the main ingredients all come from different, very successful flies such as Alexandras, Teal Blue and Silver, Executioner, Stoats Tail, etc. That's the beauty of tying your own flies, combining various aspects of different flies and combining them into one. The bottom 2 tubes are tied on 15mm aluminium bottle tubes, the top tied on plastic tubing and the single hooks are Sprite, size 8 and 10 respectively. As well as these ties, which are geared towards night time use, here are another 2 flies which I will be giving a swim during the day when there's a touch of colour in the water, which I find is a near must to success. A light breeze to boot and your in business.

The fly on the left, looking like a Dunkeld, has an orange brass bead added to the front, as well as some fine lead wire wound around the body, to help it sink on hitting the water. 

On the salmon front there was a pick up last weekend on the river with a few fish being caught on a dropping water, the biggest weighing 21 pounds and caught on fly. This week has been quiter than anticipated, with the water dropping steadily. Yesterday I spotted a couple of early grilse and the last time they appeared this early we had a very good year for them, so fingers crossed.

Above is a dead brook lamprey I found today while out for a few trout (had to have something on the end of the line with this salmon drought irrelevant of how small they were!!) Once the water reaches 10 degrees Celsius these lads start spawning, with groups of 10-30 in a nest. Don't get excited if you happen to see a few dead while out fishing thinking that there's pollution as they die after spawning.

Bring on the Southerlies!!

Well at last it looks like the winds may be a changing and its about time! For what seems like ages now the wind has been continuously dominated from an easterly direction. The snow was bad up the country and even down here we woke up to a light covering of snow 3 mornings in a row. The water is still freezing and last Good Friday while trying out some New Zealand style nymphing, well, I may aswell have been piddling against the wind! I would usually have a few spring sea trout picked up by now but they have yet to start running the river. Still there are signs of some fresh salmon running, more so the last couple of days. The rise in temperatures over the weekend will see more lads out and hopefully some fish being caught, as long as we don't get too much rain. I'd be out this evening now with the winds easing a tad, only I have a head cold kicking in!
Tied some flies a few evenings ago, Ally's and Parks. Having tied a few with just finn raccoon I found that too much of the time I was getting the dreaded tail wrap. No use in throwing a fly out and it not swimming properly, only wasting time which is of the essence at this time of the year and every cast has to count. Now I have started to tie in a light bunch of bucktail prior to tying in the finn raccoon and the results have been great with the tail wrap now eliminated, yet I have still kept the great movement of the finn raccoon. Below is an Ally's Shrimp tied on a size 6 single Daiichi 2421 multi use salmon hook and the Park is tied on a size 10 Ken Sawada SD1 low water hook. The tails may look bulky and fluffy but in the water they thin out and really come to life.

This is a great time of year to see otters in the day time. In the last 2 weeks I have seen no less than 8 individual otters, the last 6 as pairs and all at different parts of the river. Managed to get a couple of shots.