Tracy&James | Thursday, 30 March 2017
This is going to be a short FP today as Tracy and I are busy getting prepared for a saltwater fishing trip to the Bahamas. Between trips I like to strip the lines off the reels and store them in big, open coils. Invariably I then use the reels for something else, for example my bonefish reel had a ST27 line on one spool and an MED on the other (from when we fished Grafham Water with Paul last year). Tracy’s spools were similarly re-allocated with shooting heads and freshwater fly lines. This is all well and good until you’re trying to find specific spools that contain the backing that you want – 70yds of braid is more than adequate for the UK but not what we want for the tropics. I’ve therefore got lines stripped off everywhere, but I’ve now found the correct spools and re-attached the appropriate lines.
Unfortunately the weight limit imposed by the airline means I won’t be able to take my fly-tying kit with me – in fact we struggle to include the clothing we need once all the fly gear is packed. As such I’m tying up some last minute patterns that may come in handy or serve as spares if our stocks are running low. Our rods are crammed into sections of plastic drainpipe (3 per tube), again to save weight over carrying the original metal tubes. I was going to tape my pre-made shark bite tippets to these but I decided that they might start looking like pipe bombs on x-ray, so I’ll find somewhere else that I can store them straight. We’ll also be taking full advantage of our 10kg hand luggage allowance – mostly with wading boots etc. that would add too much weight to our cases.
For the next 5 weeks our FPs will be coming from the Bahamas so hopefully there will be lots of fish to talk about, plus the highly competitive ‘first bonefish of the year’ curry to be won. This year I sense I’m due a win.
