Martyn White | Thursday, 30 May 2024
Despite our storm front tubing last week, Chuck and I felt that fishing the first typhoon of the year was probably a bit too much this week. So I spent Monday putting a few mulberry patterns in my box as well as practising a bit more with the hairbugs for my bass box. I did get a bit of fishing in yesterday before work though.
The fishing was just a few hours on my local. I hadn't planned on it, but the weather was much nicer than forecast since the typhoon passed quicker than expected. Even with the fluctuations in the weather, the carp were still hanging out under the mulberry bushes feeding heavily. The ready supply of food trumps the weather changes it seems. They're starting to get conditioned to the plopping too, I'll have a few weeks of excellent fishing to look forward to before I start making them wary!
I'm starting to get the hair stacking down, although I'm still slower than I'd like to be. The good thing about all the practising is that I'll end up with plenty of duplicate flies for cycling out. The one downside of hairbugs from a fishing standpoint is that the gradually soak up water which changes how they float and how well they fish. You can do things to make them last longer, waterproofing the hair with tent spray and then multiple applications of mucilin while sitting in front of the telly do make a big difference, but there's nothing that works as well after a couple of fish as tying a fresh bug on. So it's good that the only way to get better is to keep doing it. Knowing that I'm going to be swapping flies out often has got me thinking about tippet rings, I've never used them nor have I really fancied them, but maybe I'm getting lazier in my old age. I picked up a pack to have a go with and I'm still not sure if it's a good idea, but not having to tie whole new leaders on the water might be worth adding the metal.