Nick Moore | Saturday, 11 March 2023
I was given an excellent prototype line to test this week, and I will be giving it a go this weekend. So what is it? Well, it’s a long headed #5 line that I think will fly to the horizon, how do I know this? Well, as soon as I came back from work, I loaded it onto a reel and tested it in the garden. One of the first things to do was to get out the accuracy rings from the shed, so I spent about an hour throwing at targets. It had a very nice taper that unrolled beautifully, and didn’t crumple or collapse when using minimum force to produce dolphin nosed loops.
Then, just because I wanted to I tried to launch it, and it sailed over the fence which was impressive, it even kicked on the reel (it’s 90’ long!) so you can probably guess how good the line is, I can’t wait for them to go into production.
Additionally, last weekend I had a great time fishing, ending up with 6 trout (5 rainbows and 1 brown) which were taken in a variety of techniques from drys, buzzers and damsel nymphs to a blob on the surface. Now, I mainly fish still waters in the UK, and a lot of venues do not allow boats, float tubes or wading, so that can make fishing challenging. If you are the first one there, then you can quite easily pick off fish close to the margins that are feeding amongst the reeds. When more people arrive, the fish get pushed out and this can be a problem, the old “ you can always catch fish within 30’ ” no longer applies and you have to cast a long way to reach them.
So, how far was I casting? Whilst It’s a bad habit to estimate how far you are casting by how much line is left on the reel or by your feet, I think I was in the region of 110’ to 118’ (Paul’s #6 line). This brown was feeding sporadically, and the surface was very calm. I was using a small dry midge and cast about 10’ in front of it, I sighted down the line and saw the rise. I paused and lifted the rod, no problem! It was a very nice fish that probably hasn’t seen an anglers fly for a long time.
Tight lines