Martyn White | Thursday, 24 November 2022
Hawaiian Dave managed to get himself invited out on a bass boat with another guy we know this week, the swine! Which made me jealous as it's the peak big fish time. I had to slum it on the muddy river looking for carp instead.
Conditions didn't look great for either of us with there being a lot of rain on Saturday and Sunday, I hadn't fished for 10 days so even knowing the river was muddy I went out for a mooch around and caught a few fish, but more importantly, I did some testing on an anti-eject carp fly I've been working on. It's nearly right and the way it makes the fish hook temselves is definitely going to be a game changer for dirty water where we can't see them eat. Just a bit more tuning..
Dave on the other hand was heading out on the bass bost while I was settling down to a cuppa and the start of a Durham ranger. It wasn't long before the messages started coming in, Dave's first fish was a beast of a fish at 85cm caught on a scad pattern. It doesn't look so big in the photo, because the captain insisted on the long arm shot. Maybe it's because I'm conditioned to thinking that type of photo is always a small fish, maybe it does just look smaller without something close to the fish giving perspective.. I don't know, but I never let them make me do the long arm shot.
So although I'm envious because I'll not get out till the new year, I've at least got a bit of direction in my fishing for the meantime. Another few tweaks and testing and I'm pretty sure I'll have my new fly ready to share.