LOW-DOWN STREAMERS

Author: Charles Jardine (FFFT, Dec 2005, pp. 50-53)

Isimply was not ready for the assault on my fly-fishing senses when I arrived in the Czech Republic to join my son, Alex, and his other fellow competitors on the English Youth fly fishing team that had been in Rozembork for a few days prior to my arrival.

Apparently, under the hawk-like tutelage of Dr Milan, the English lads and lasses had tackled the various river sections of the Vlatvou with all manner of creatures more likely found in the pages of a Bram Stoker novel than a fly-fishing catalogue.

Well you can imagine, can't you? I arrive expecting to hear about some artistic stuff done with fixed line and leader, the reading of close currents, the art of unravelling and understanding mysteries of water speed and positioning the fly just so in the water column. And, of course, the flies themselves; I expected to see feverish and nimble young English fingers cunningly spinning and wafting fur and synthetic onto specifically sculpted hooks and carefully counterbalanced with all manner of subtle ballast. What do I get? Godzilla meets Bernard Matthews' feather 'fall out' at Christmas, that's what! Surprised? You might say so.

I was soon educated in the art of this alternative river-angling deviancy.

Many years previously the clarion call and the rule that was installed in we fly-fishing vagabonds that fished the European circuit by that fisher, footballer and cricketer par excellence Tony Pawson, was to always carry a Hi-D (as they were called back then) I guess by today's sunk line radical Di7 standards, it was almost as pedestrian as a floater. Yet carry it we did and the line saved many a day and dry net.

What I was experiencing was just a continuation of that philosophy. I guess that you get cosy and sanguine in advancing age. This was `fauvist' fly-fishing: the shock of the new. It worked on me. It also worked on the fish population.

You will want to know what the kerfuffle was. Bloomin' great streamers, that's what. And not just one: another one on the dropper (agreeably, marginally smaller) compounded the artistic river fishing agony. But I should have known better. One look at some of the water and then the drawn parallels to those wild, unfettered streams of America's West could be made.

Streamers ... why on earth not? I guess I could just about cope with this aspect, but it was the fishing method that was so radical. Then again, was it? I dimly recalled Charlie Brooks, the legendary American Western flyfishing guru, writing about similar instances. In Nymph Fishing for Larger Trout, all manner of despotic acts are there, including using shooting heads in fast-flowing river sections. Which was exactly the type of water Alex and his team-mates were now demonstrating their new technique to me.

The stream gave both the problem and the solution, as is what invariably happens. The problem here, of course, was the small - or in this case, long - fact that in the narrow world of competition, rules forbid the use of shooting heads: enter the full blown line - and worse was to follow.

Down 'n' dirty

I listened almost transfixed - actually poleaxed would have been a more appropriate description, as the gathering told tales of #8 lines boomed into the river on Di-7's: the rod tip then jammed and jabbed down hard underneath surface so that the tip grazed the bottom (let's hear it for warranties!) and pinned the line to this lower area.

You might logically ask, "Why? Why would you want to do this to your favourite rod?" Well, it sank the line, leader and fly with phenomenal speed, and, importantly, maintained the close contact with the lower levels of the stream through the entire duration of the cast.

It was something that the chalkstream post-purist in me simply had to try (there is recalcitrance in all of us).

The next day with everyone fishing their `official' practice in another section of river altogether, I skulked out armed with Alex's Di7 and my trusty 9ft #7. The previous night had been spent concocting all manner of weird and satanic looking streamers on 8, 6 and 4 long-shank hooks - loaded with lead, Leechlike rabbit Zonker-like wings in natural brown and a sinful black, a dubbed or spun collar of red or dark pink to emulate gills and a further dubbed black head that took a very pronounced eye either side or the mercifully simpler, black (or very dark brown) Woolly Bugger with a bead head and a nice articulated mass of palmered hackle. But, of course, there had to be a twist; this was the Czech Republic after all. The `twist' was the dropper. A smaller streamer on a 10 or 12 long-shank 'lifted' by a bright fluorescent red/orange tail, UV pearl dubbed body (Hends), and a pink marabou wing. Ah yes, the good old traditional river wet fly pink! A brown hackle swiftly followed by a dubbed black head (seals fur) and a magnificent pair of lifelike eyes (the Epoxy style) either side.

All this feathered wonderment was attached to the fly line via a leader. Straight mono, no messing about with finer points here - of about 8 lb or l0 lb BS measuring, I suppose, 10ft no more holding the one dropper. A simple enough system really, and I suspect that was the value of it all - it was unfussy fishing. Yet again, the concept revolved around water-craft: reading the water and sheer audacious wading - the ability to swallow fear and just get out in that current and cast (actually, in this case an ability to duck is also a good plan); beyond that it all seemed pretty simple.

However, I was tutored in asking 'where' and 'what to do' once at the river. I had it drilled into me by both the young team members and Dr Milan what to look for. It was specific. Look for rocks and fish the broken water, front and back. Fish the tail-outs and anywhere in the river where the current looks as though it is broken and there might be a sub-surface structure to deflect the flow. OK. Off I went. I felt confident(ish). Heck, they even let me into the `secret' spot that had yielded fish into 5 - 8 lb in weight -apparently planted rainbows that had `grown on' and some smaller browns, too.

The sweeping bend of the river that followed the road was unmistakeable. It was as good as everyone said it was, a great swathe of water throwing a huge left-handed bend, broken centrally by some fairly obviously large subsurface rocks and an inside line of coiling, almost oily, currents flanked by grasses and a steeply rising bank that howled deep pools and to me at least, big fish. I felt that this was where I should fish. It was where I did fish and caught ... nothing. Nothing at all.

I was certain I was in the right place. I continued down the run - and I must say that the Czechs would have been proud of the way I waded, water swirling around the midriff, and higher, feet finding precarious and tenuous foot holds. Still nothing. Hmm, something wrong here.

More out of boredom - I know you should not succumb or admit to this ugly fact of fishing life - but let's face it, casting with a HiD in a river and then catching nothing is, well, dull. I began to revaluate the section of water.

I was forced to look at other elements. Perhaps, as I had witnessed with the youngsters earlier and their quest for fishing in any fast water, oxygen-infused stickle or run to catch their fish held the key. Maybe, they did actually mean the mid-stream deflections and deviations bounded by pretty shallow water. It was worth a try. So, forsaking the natural `pull' of deep holes and eddies and the norm, I began to pound the middle river, by initially casting as far as I could manage towards the far bank and then letting the fly swing round in sweeping deep curve, so that I fished through the midstream deflections. It began to dawn on me exactly why it was necessary to hold the fly line pinioned to the bottom via the sunk rod tip: it acted like an immediate and extraordinary upstream mend and allowed the pattern to come through in a very much more controlled and slower manner than would have been the case with a floating line - even a sink tip - combined with a deep, swing counter-acting, mend. I was learning. Looking back, I still wish that I had been able to use a shooting head, though. It would have made the whole operation so much easier and casting with a full Di-6 or 7 on a river is simply not a great deal of fun, or easy, irrespective what people might tell you. It's all 'strip, pull, tweak, tug, feel the water, lighten around the line, roll cast, get the line to the surface, another roll cast, straighten, lift, aerialise, shoot, touchdown, sink, sweep, strip' ... not easy. Rather, it's energetic, bordering on the brutal. Then there is the wading to contend with ... you know you have been fishing!

Savage wrench

Anyway, this went on for a few casts down the run, and then the rain came; great big mountain dollops of the stuff. I was pondering packing up when something truly feral savage - wrenched the line running across my rain-streaked fingers. The rod tip just juddered and then hooped: it was worrying. Well, almost.

In the current, the weight and the fight was extreme - and fun. After all that industry of casting it was very pleasant to see some reward. Given that I had tied all the patterns on barbless Kanapeck hooks, I had my anxieties, but everything held and somewhere beneath the rain-puckered river surface, I caught a glimpse of a very sizeable sherry coloured flank. Gradually the weight and the pull grudgingly came towards me, rather than streaking permanently away towards the far side of the river. It was a victory of sorts.

The considerable mass soon came to hand - a fabulous rainbow of about 61b. "One to the bead-headed Woolly Bugger", I thought, with even the rain not dampening spirits. Then, after just a few casts, I caught a feisty grayling on a pink streamer. Now I am not about to suggest for one moment that we forsake our dry flies and Bugs but, hey! Who'd have thought it? But did I once read Dick Walker advocating Polystickles for grayling? Anyone refresh the memory cells?

That was not all. I caught another fish on the pink streamer - not a trout or even a close relative but a sort of dace-like thing, merely twice the size of the fly - again, firmly in the mouth.

It makes you think. It has certainly made me think about streamers for trout (and now grayling) in the UK with renewed interest. Next season I want to explore this aspect in far more detail and will, I promise report back. And, no, it won't be a style conducted on the Itchen! I also want to try and unravel the fatal fascination that fish have for the colour pink. Pike love it. Trout, especially brown trout, and grayling do, too. It seems, so do dace-likeroachy-chub things. And all this from just a few days in the Czech Republic in the company of the marvellous, young anglers.

In closing, I thought I would summarise by stating that wherever a member of the Czech team went so did the streamer outfit. This fact alone suggests its importance, and the plan seemed to be to use the Bug and work the water thoroughly, then having gone through a sizeable section, select the deeper runs and boisterous pockets and far bank runs and watery corridors. Then swing a streamer through just to be on the safe side. Well, it certainly worked for them, and I have a feeling it will work for you - if you are brave enough. Welcome to fly-fishing on the darker side!