Anyway. The weather had been shit for the past week but on the day of our visit to Coniston the sun was out and the rain had actually packed in!  Myself and Stu polled up at about 10:30….only 90 minutes later than we’d planned, and took out the last remaining decent boat. I felt compelled to fish my favourite Consiton spot, just off the reeds and lily pads near the boat house but after an hour of sweet FA we moved on. This brought us out into the general throng and we discovered that Matt and John were embedded among moving fish in the relatively shallow water around the island, and had caught a couple.

Green buzzers they said. Green buzzers! I tried every bastard green buzzer in my box, as did Stu but we did not catch anything. Lunch came as a welcome respite if I’m honest, and gave me a chance to catch up with members old and new. That’s right, new members! Andy and Neil had come along to see how we roll in the Roundhay Fly Fishers, Christ knows what they thought of it all but good to have them onboard

After lunch I pretty much gave up on the fishing for most of the session when I realised I could sprawl all 6 foot 5 of me out in a complicated but relatively comfortable position involving gunwales. The sun bore down on my puny white skin with a glorious Vitamin D bath whilst Stu gently rocked the boat with every cast and for that brief shining interlude not one f*ck was given about anything.

Meanwhile, Matt & John continued to catch more fish! We had originally started fishing near them again in order to capitalize on their success but eventually it became a miserable experience watching them frolic around in their fish catching frenzy so we pulled up our anchor and left them to it! Thankfully, Kev and Doug (pictured below) were blanking which made me feel a bit better about myself. How nasty am I?

At least Stu carried on trying and his efforts were eventually rewarded with a solitary rainbow at the end of the afternoon.

In the background you can see Andy and Neil, who also had the audacity to catch fish whilst I lolled around in the sun!

Clear winner of the trophy though was Matt with about 7 or 8 fish I think. Did you see how I did that? Did you see it? I started off enthusiastic about writing this blog post but about half way through I realised I was bored and it just tails off into utter obscurity. I’m back out on that boat, the rich aroma of sun roasted Barbour hat wax soaked with a decade of memories lapping at my nostrils.

We think one has already been caught as not long after the stocking a member of Yorkshire Anglers submitted a picture of a 6lb brownie he’d caught from Beaver Dyke (although it’s possible this is one of the existing lunkers!)

I’d put quite a bit of prep into the day, tying the flies I posted about last night and making some rather bad-ass sandwiches. These kept me going with their Double Gloucester, jalapeno and pepperoni goodness.

I spent the majority of the morning fishing from the ‘spit’ and only managed to attract a couple of swirls to a team of buzzers and a pull on a lure whereas people on either side of me were hooking into fish. Figuring it was time for a change of scenery I upped sticks and set off walking round the lake, doing a meet and greet with the rest of the club. I eventually settled into a spot on the North West corner of the lake which was a bit harder to fish because of the wind direction (Easterly) but had the benefit of more fish activity. I hooked and lost a good fish on a buzzer then nothing else happened until I whipped out the Tanfield Twat on an intermediate line at which point things got substantially livelier.

The Tanfield Twat

In about 10 minutes I landed 2 fish, lost another and had several plucks. The 2nd fish was a belter, it’s hard to see from the hasty snap I took with my phone but it was a real broad specimen knocking on for 3.5lb, maybe 4lb and in excellent condition. Please note my hand isn’t actually touching its eye!!

I had to leave the action for lunch, there being a tradition that we all down tools and take lunch together on these outings. Can’t say I was too disappointed though because the warm, cosy fishing hut seemed rather appealing. It was pissing down again and getting bloody cold.

What a morale booster the hut was! We got the wood burning stove going and ploughed into our provisions whilst our clothes dried out…a bit. Even so, a couple of our group decided enough was enough and said their farewells for the day.

After lunch I went straight back down to the same spot and had another good stint, landing another 5 fish and losing several more.  They were all on the Tanfield Twat, although to be fair I couldn’t see the point in switching to anything else, maybe any fly would have done! For reference the fly is tied on a (rather large looking) Orvis size 12  hook, black marabou tail with a few strands of holo-tinsel, black chenile body, garish fluo yellow collar and perhaps most importantly a tungsten bead head. I invented it for this trip to Tanfield, I will tie a load more,  and undoubtedly it will never work anywhere ever again, particularly  Tanfield.

By about 5 I think we’d all had enough of the weather and slowly but surely we all seemed to migrate back up to the hut, despite several hours of daylight remaining! Conditions aside though, it was actually a good day out for the club because just about everyone caught plenty of fish (Kevin took the trophy with 11). What’s more, they were cracking fish, really powerful, well defined markings and as firm as a choirboy’s buttocks ( I make an assumption here).

Hook: Drennan Emerger size 14

Thread: Brown 8/0

Body dubbing: Orvis Fine and Dry Hare’s Ear Tan (experiment with colours!)

Wing Post: White Antron

Hackle: Grizzle

Tail: Grizzle

Her we go!

1) Catch in your thread

2) Take about 8 inches of Antron and bring one end up to the other to ‘double up’. This gives you a thicker shaft with plenty of length to hold onto whilst working your hackle later.  Catch it in and lay down a few locking turns.

3) Trim off excess and form your vertical wing post. I do this by holding the Antron up whilst laying thread either side then running a few turns of thread that go around post and hook shank. Basically, try keep it neat but make sure your wing post can stand up without your support, it’ll make life easier for you.

4) Take the thread down to just before the bend, catching in some grizzle fibres to make a tail. You might find it easier to do this before doing the wingpost. Hmm. Maybe I should’ve mentioned that to you earlier! Aah you’ll be reet.

5) Run a small amount of the fine dubbing onto your thread.

6) Take the dubbing up to the wingpost then catch in your hackle. Ok, 2 important things here:

a) Choose a feather that has correctly sized hackles. Offer it up to the fly in advance and ensure that fibres don’t go much further than the bend.

b) Before tying the hackle in strip away some fibres at the base so that you have enough to tie it in by AND leave some stalk spare. I’ve marked this on the picture below.

7)Hold the wingpost with your left hand. Run the hackle around the wing post in a clockwise fashion, placing each turn UNDER the last so you are working DOWN the wingpost, your last turn butting up against the body. This is why I told you to leave some spare stalk.

After the last turn, hold the hackle tight against the shank with your right hand and  tilt the wingpost back towards the tail slightly. Stroke the hackles back in the same direction to get them out of the way (don’t worry, you can stroke them back!) then get in there with your thread and lock that hackle down tight.

Keep the post and hackle fibres out of the way for now. Trim off excess hackle tip and lay down some more dubbing towards the eye.  I’ve used a different colour to the rest of the body here, just for variety (actually, it’s so dark in my lounge I picked the wrong colour by mistake).

9) Remove any excess dubbing off the thread, push the wingpost and hackle forward again and neaten it all out with a dubbing needle or something. Build a little head then whip finish.

The pictures below were taken at Moffat with my first ever digital camera – not even 1 mega pixel! Gotta be at least 10 years ago, maybe more.