Tracy&James | Sunday, 19 December 2021
Tracy and I probably had our last fishing trip of the year to the Dee yesterday (today as I write), as the next couple of weeks will be spent hosting family who are coming up to Wales for Christmas (unless another lockdown, which we seem to be heading for, forces a change of plan). I’d like to report that we went out with a bang but unfortunately we couldn’t even raise a whimper – we both blanked with no takes or even fish seen. We did stay dry though which was a result being as the river was pushing hard. I had one very close call when I took one step too far trying to free my snagged nymphs – I stepped into a bit of a hole and I wasn’t coming out without some help (or taking a dip). Luckily Tracy was nearby and she waded over and handed me her stick that gave me the extra stability required to extricate myself. Unfortunately I then had to pull my leader for a break which I hate doing. I think we’ve got too used to the low summer levels and relatively easy wading, today was a reminder of the power of the River Dee at its ‘normal’ height.
Tracy as usual started with a dry, but we saw nothing rising. She’s not that confident with her nymphing tactics and couldn’t remember when she last caught a fish on a nymph as she’s pretty much fished dries all year. As I couldn’t remember either, we set a New Year’s resolution to record our fishing trips in 2022 so we can review at the end of the year to see what tactics were more successful for different conditions. That said, the dry fly fishing this year has been very good even on days with no obvious hatches. However, I’m sure there were days when nymphing would have been more successful so next year we’re going to mix things up a little bit more.
It was still nice to be on the bank for the day though, the weather was dry with some sun and a gentle breeze. Tracy took the opportunity to try out her new SLR camera taking photos of the birds, flora and me. She snapped away happily trying different settings to assess the features available, so expect more of her photos to be gracing the FP in the coming months.
It’s now coming up to three years since we last caught a bonefish. Had I realised that my final day’s tropics fishing would be the last for such a long time perhaps I’d of approached it differently – as it was we spent 3 hours limping home in a car that had shredded a tyre. But I guess with the current global situation you never know what restrictions are coming up, so perhaps the moral is to make the most of things when you can. We are still hoping to go bonefishing next Spring, although it may be a last minute event due to all the uncertainty at the moment. For the moment though we intend to make the most of catching up with our family over Christmas, after not being able to do so last year. So whatever you are doing this Xmas, have fun and we hope you have more luck catching fish than we did.
James
