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Week 5 Cast of the WeekApril 25th is D-Day for JB! Simon Cooper of Fishing Breaks has brought the idea back from the States – The One Fly Competition. The idea is that teams of three will fish his glorious chalkstreams for a day with only ONE fly each. Lose that fly and you’re out, scuppered, done for. It all sounds gloriously simple but… You’re under the all-seeing gaze of your guide for the whole day. Warts and all, all your shortcomings, on view. It doesn’t matter how experienced you might be this will be intimidating in the extreme. There’s the constant thought that you’re letting down your team members, too. You’re hanging out to dry. You’re hideously exposed. SO I NEED HELP BADLY. What fly do you reckon? Nymph or dry? What pattern? What size? If I look at the rules I see it’s upstream only and the fly mustn’t be tied on anything larger than a size ten. I can’t tell yet what the weather’s going to be like and surely that will have an impact. Is it worth looking at a forecast? And how about the tippet? What do you reckon? Too fine and you’ll lose the fly on a fish or weed and you’re out. Too thick and I wont’ fool a fish day long. I guess a compromise has got to be made but where? Do I go fluorocarbon or copolymer? Or simple, reliable, down-to-earth mono? I’ve always thought Maxima takes some beating. And what about rod and reel – floating lines are obligatory? I’m not sure what river I’ll be on. It might be a carrier or a small stream or the mighty Test itself. God forbid I’m plonked there! I’ve always been in awe of it. It’s somehow so big, so purposeful, so damned hard to read. Personally, I’m happier with a three or four-weight outfit. What do you think? If I’m on the main river I’m surely under gunned? And add other bits and bobs, too. I’m not allowed to wade and that’s bad news for me because I always like to get in there. And I’m toting along a film crew after me so that I can relive every horrendous blunder. It’s one thing to make a prat of yourself in private, another to make a pollock of yourself in public. Did any of you see BBC TVs One Show on Friday 18th April at 7 p.m.? Generally it’s just harmless wallpaper stuff worth watching for the occasional interesting item and the woman presenter’s legs! Tonight, though, was an exception. The main story concerned carp would you believe. Carp as food. The reporter went to a carp farm and then, back in the studio, all the guests ate what looked like a grilled five pounder. Okay, the programme made sense. Carp, after all, are a uniquely sustainable food source. Farmed salmon and trout eat all manner of essential goodies from the sea. But not carp. Mashed up vegetable refuse and a few mealworms is all they require. Fattening up a carp, it seems, does no harm to anyone. Unless you’re a mealworm. So, on the one level, the programme seemed fine. It’s just if you take things a bit further…where are some people going to draw the line between farmed carp and wild carp? And as we know, there’s a present and increasing problem with a minority of immigrants catching British coarse fish to eat. Could BBC have fuelled that particular fire? I fish a fair bit in the Czech Republic where carp are eaten with gusto. A fine fat mirror is a Christmas treat for them in the way a turkey is for us. And I’ve fished with plenty of fly anglers who’ve picked up a bait rod if they’ve seen a carp amble into the swim. Supper, you see! Bigger than a trout and just as good to eat, they say. And yet, in the waters over there I still seem to see a lot of carp mooching about. Perhaps, it seems, we can have our carp and eat them both. |