EACH PAGE HERE IS AN EXTRACT FROM THE EBOOK.
While each season provides its own challenges, they equally offer opportunities to
try out new techniques. Each chapter provides a detailed method of fishing that I
have found to be highly effective at that time of the year, but there have been days
when I have tried all the methods as the day's conditions varied. Don't just cast
and hope! There are always tell-tale signs about what is going on beneath the surface.
You just have to realise what those signs are and how to react to them.
Fall will find another change in the trout's feeding habits. They seem to know that
the cooler days presage the oncoming winter and that they need to pack on as much
weight as possible in anticipation of hard times ahead. This is the time when they
become carnivorous (as they are eating fish does that make them piscivorous?) and
will actively hunt for fry. Again we find ourselves back at that "ten foot zone",
but with different fishing techniques. This time we are pulling a fry type pattern
at speed - give them something to chase! This is known as lure fishing, not to be
confused with the wooden, plastic and metal lures of other fishing methods. These
flies are large, often glittery and sometimes made using tubes and traces. More information
is in the Flies Section. Takes will be hard and the fights monumental from fish who
have had a whole summer to get fit.
Spring brings the opportunity to re-acquaint yourself with the water after the hardships
of winter and the fish will be feeding on whatever they can find to make up for the
privations they have endured. That "ten foot zone" will be the first port of call
when the weather begins to warm and the vegetation starts to re-grow. If the fish
cannot be found in that area on the upwind shore - i.e. the shore that the wind is
blowing from, then the next place to try will be the downwind shore at the same depth.
I have never been able to work out why the fish seem to prefer the upwind shore at
times and the downwind shore at other times without apparent reason.