Few fish come willingly to the net… but some just make you think they might

I was once told by a much wiser fisherman than I that there are two types of trout – those which can be caught and those which can’t.  The latter, he assured me, includes ‘educated fish’ which have seen so many anglers’ flies that they can spot an artificial at a glance.  More particularly, it includes those which, whether by natural cunning or sheer good fortune, have adopted a lie which is almost impossible to reach. 

I came upon one such fish on one of our club beats – a narrow chalk stream which winds its way between tall stands of willow, birch and alder.  Having taken up a ‘lie’ just before a bend in the river, the fish had developed something of a reputation.  He was a large brownie which, whilst originally a ‘stockie’, had overwintered and established his lie in that particular place for all the right reasons – the bend is a sharp left hander as you follow the river upstream and the water there seems to quicken as it flows around it, thereby creating an area of slack water closest to the near bank.  It was there, in the calmer water, that he would wait, ready to dart out and examine anything carried on the flow which looked to be of interest.  He could, very occasionally, be tempted to rise to an artificial fly if only to tease us but, so far as I knew, he had never once taken anything other than ‘naturals’.  Given that he was such a fussy eater and of such a contrary nature, he became known to us all as ‘The Awkward Blighter’.

I first heard him being called that by other club members who would speak of him with hushed reverence.  Some of them said that he’d now been in the river so long that he’d never be caught, whilst others just smiled and shook their head as if to acknowledge that he was a fish worthy of their respect and admiration.  Of course, that didn’t stop people attempting to catch him and I, like them, had tried just about every fly in my box at one time or another yet had never once managed to fool him.  My offerings were either refused, ignored or, because of the current, drifted so far offline that he failed to see them.  Having wasted so much time on him, I decided that he and I had ‘unfinished business’ and resolved to put that to rights before the season closed – but it wasn’t going to be easy!  

I started by designing and tying a fly especially for the purpose, something The Awkward Blighter wouldn’t have seen before.  It was based on a sedge fly pattern, made from tan coloured dubbing tied on a size 16 barbless hook.  To this I added two or three small CDC feathers for buoyancy and covered them with a pair of wings cut from a shiny bronze coloured cellophane ribbon which been tied around a box of chocolates.  I formed a neat head with a few turns of thread and, as an afterthought, tied in two fibres from a black pheasant tail to represent antennae.  I knew the latter would probably prove quite fragile, but I was only planning to use each fly a couple of times anyway.  When I’d finished, it looked very much like a ‘Cinnamon Sedge’ which were common on the river so I trimmed the wings accordingly.  All in all, I reckoned the fly would float well enough even in the faster water and so, armed with half a dozen or so, I took myself down to the river quite late one afternoon.  There, with a flask of coffee beside me, I watched the river from my favourite bench beside the bridge just downstream from where I knew he’d be lurking. 

For me, the best part of fishing is when you’re not fishing!  By that, I don’t mean enjoying the anticipation beforehand nor having a few beers with my pals on the way home afterwards.  What I’m referring to is those moments when you pause and take the time to commune with the river environment.  It might sound strange, but I like to sit beside the river for a few moments before making my first cast.  I find that if I keep very still, Mother Nature will usually present a pageant of her own and I become so absorbed in watching a kingfisher darting back and forth or a water vole with its little back feet frantically paddling across that I almost forget why I’m there.  On this particular occasion I recall that I was watching a grass snake slither down through the reeds and into the water and was surprised to see that despite the current, it was as much at home in the river as it was on land.  It was whilst watching the snake that I noticed a fish come up to snaffle something from the surface.  It was a very gentle rise, nothing too showy or splashy – the fish just casually drifted up and sipped its quarry down leaving only the merest ripple to disturb the surface.  I knew at once that it was the Awkward Blighter.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t see what he was taking – small and black was my best guess, but there were a few sedge flies about so I tied on one of my ‘specials’ and took up my position. 

To stand any chance of attracting The Awkward Blighter’s interest, I first needed to get a fly to a place where he would actually see it.  That was easier said than done and, over the course of the season, I’d tried various options.  By far the easiest would have been to stand upstream and let the fly float down towards him but, of course, that would have been against club rules.  Similarly, I’d discounted casting from the opposite bank as we didn’t have any rights to fish from there and, besides, it was so overgrown that even reaching the water would have been like hacking my way through a jungle!  Instead, I invariably stood well downstream, kneeling down behind the reeds which lined the bank at that point and casting over them.  Even though I was certain he couldn’t possibly see me, he always seemed to know I was there so stealth was essential.  Also, casting blind like that meant that my fly seldom ended up in the ideal position.  What I needed was to ensure that it ‘touched’ the water as softly as a feather, just like a natural.  I also knew that I wouldn’t get more than a couple of chances – a fish like The Awkward Blighter wouldn’t expect his supper to land on the same spot more than once.  It was a lot to ask but, if I could get it right, there was at least a good chance that my fly would be picked up by the faster water and carried along to pass right in front of his nose.  What the Awkward Blighter chose to do then was up to him.  With any luck he’d accept the offering with good grace, although somehow I knew that was wishful thinking!

Having taken up my usual position behind the reeds, I waited for several minutes in the hope of convincing him that I was no longer there.  Only then did I try my first cast.  As it turned out, I was overly cautious and my fly fell woefully short.  My second cast was much too long and the fly got caught up in the bankside vegetation and I was lucky to retrieve it without causing too much disturbance.  My third cast was better and I watched expectantly as the fly drifted back towards me.  As it did so, I hurriedly took up any slack as best I could and mended my line to avoid any drag.

Nothing!  Not even a sniff!  After all that effort, The Awkward Blighter didn’t trouble to so much as look at my fly, never mind take it.  However, having got my eye in, I persevered and tried again, and then again after that but all to no avail.  Normally I work on the basis of trying just three casts and, if that doesn’t work, I either give the fish best and move on or at least change the fly.  For some reason I didn’t do either on that occasion.  Instead, ignoring my two failed attempts and the three which hadn’t attracted any interest, I tried one more time. 

As it turned out, my next cast was actually none too shabby and pretty soon I could see the fly bobbing along in the faster water as it came towards me.  Then, suddenly, I couldn’t!  My first thought was that it had sunk and I kicked myself for not at least refreshing it with more floatant before casting again, but I then realised that there was something heavy on the end my line.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t exactly fighting, but it was moving which ruled out the possibility of my having snagged something below the surface.  Then, without warning, whatever it was started stripping the line from my reel!

With my heart beating faster than it should, I let the fish run for a while and, fortunately, he didn’t seem minded to go beyond the bend.  Instead, he raced back towards me and I guessed what he was doing – he seemed to know instinctively that if he created enough slack line there was a good chance he could unhook himself.  I quickly reeled in the spare line and then checked him before he reached the bridge.  As I did so, he slewed over towards the far bank before turning and heading back upstream once more. 

After a few more runs he stopped and seemed to settle whilst he considered his options before setting off once more.  What followed wasn’t an epic struggle; it was more like a battle of wits as he proved how well he could use the features of the riverbed to his advantage.  He also seemed to know every trick in the book when it came to shrugging off a hook.  He took me into the reeds; he wrapped my line under some tree roots and he even swum around the bend, this time going so far upstream that I was forced to follow him along the bank.  When at last he seemed to be tiring, I eased him a little closer to where I was standing and unclipped my net in anticipation.  Once he was near enough, I carefully dipped the net into the river so as not to needlessly alarm him then got ready to claim my prize.  In fact, he was almost touching the rim of my net when he peered up at me, staring me straight in the eye and giving me a look which told me in no uncertain terms that he was far from beaten.  With a flick of his tail, he took off again, straight to the middle of the river where he leaped from the water like a salmon.  As he did so, the line went slack and my barbless hook simply fell away.

The strange thing was that as I returned to the bench and poured more coffee from my flask, I found that I wasn’t overly disappointed at having lost him.  Technically, the club rules state that you can’t claim to have caught a fish unless you have it on the bank beside you.  But, for me, the challenge of trying to catch a fish like The Awkward Blighter is all about tempting him to take my fly, particularly one I’ve designed and tied myself.  I reckoned that I’d managed that well enough and, whilst he’d got the better of me, I would have carefully released him anyway so what did it matter if he’d got away?  So far as I was concerned honour was satisfied – although my entry in the catch report still niggles me whenever I read it.  It states simply ‘one brown trout – lost at the net.’  You may feel that the epitaph doesn’t exactly do him justice or reflect what a worthy opponent he’d proved to be.  That may well be so but, in my view, it serves him right.  After all, that’s what you get for being such an awkward blighter.