Hardy & Greys - Alnwick, England

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1. Flyfishing
   1. Flyfishing
   2. Coarse

Whilst 2011 won't go down in history as being a truly vintage year for me, it's actually been a whole lot better than you might imagine. The weather nationally was a lot less than perfect, but thanks to our micro-climate down here in Cornwall it was far from being the disaster that so many others have reported.

To show just how local things can be, many of my angling friends on the South coast of Devon and Cornwall have been moaning almost all through the year. Their Bass fishing has been patchy at best and well down on previous years in terms of numbers. Yet up here on the North Atlantic coast it's been one of our better years, with numbers well up on 2010. We've also had more of what I call ‘specimen' fish - Bass of 5lb or more - which have added their own special spice to the sport.

We had a great start to our season and I put this down specifically to the early warm spring we enjoyed. Most people realise that water temperature is the critical factor in Bass fishing and our estuary hit the magical 12 degree mark in early May, a good two weeks ahead of normal. It's truly fascinating to see this happen: on one day there are seemingly no fish in the estuary at all, whilst on the next it's as though someone has thrown a switch and there are Bass and Mullet all over the place.

By June there were good densities of Bass and Mullet throughout the estuary, from the sand bars at the mouth right up into the salt marshes at the top of the tidal stretches. Mullet are still the hardest fish to catch on the fly and sadly I have to admit that yet another season goes past without my having found a really good fly to tempt them! With Mullet there are flies that work occasionally and sometimes even flies that work really well for a day or so, but nothing that genuinely works all the time. In truth, I'm not sure that a panacea fly actually exists at all for Grey Mullet. In some ways it's frustrating but in others I honestly don't mind, as this enigmatic fish remains as one of the greatest challenges on the fly.

We also proved another theory of mine this year, in that school Bass will react far more to a two fly cast than to a single fly. With big numbers of schoolies around, wet wading and beach fishing with light tackle is brilliant fun. The Hardy Demon 9'6" #6 is perfect for this and it also has enough backbone to fish a multi-fly cast. Time after time we found that the Bass would react more readily to this than they would to a single long-leader fly. Whether this is simple greed on their part or just a combination of aggression and competitive feeding I know not. What I do know is that I lost count of the times when the fish had both flies in its mouth when it came to the net! The reverse of this was also proven in 2011 in that when you're hunting the larger, more solitary bass then a single fly on a long leader is a must - presentation is everything.

Multi-species days were up in number this year. Either using Kayaks or the sea-boat, one of the real challenges is to see how many different fish you can take on the fly in one day. It's great to have this as a target as you set out in the morning as it adds another dimension to the day with so many variations on tactic. Mackerel, Launce and Garfish take well in the upper layers, whilst Bass and Mullet can be had in anything from ten inches to ten feet of water. But for Pollack you need to get down and a crunching take on a deep sinker can sometimes feel as though it's taking your arm off. We enjoyed a few Bream on the fly this year as well and even some Shad from Rock in late season. Not bad for a mixed palette of sport!

It was water, or rather the serious lack of water that drove our river fishing this season. For almost six months the River Camel was ‘showing its bones' and I've been wading in parts of the river bed that I've never even seen before. The lack of water was a real worry in high summer as the temperatures soared and even the wild brownies became well-nigh impossible to tempt. Insect and invertebrate life became concentrated around the few midstream stones that remained covered by water but even on evenings when there was a good hatch there were times when the trout were only mildly interested. With little or no fresh water in the system, Sea Trout numbers were down and the summer Salmon were few and far between. But wild river Trout are hardy creatures and they have to feed to survive, so truly impossible evenings were rare. For most of the time they were free rising and a bit of competitive feeding can make for great sport on a 7 foot rod and a three weight line.

The up-side of a lack of water was that we were able to get into the river to do some maintenance work and general tidying. It was fascinating to be able to use thigh waders in places that are normally six feet under water and to have a rare, privileged look at the river's structure. On one memorable occasion I remember peering under a corner section of bank which looked like nothing at all from above, to find that there was an undercut of well over a metre, laced with exposed tree roots - small wonder that it had been a known holding pool for so many years.

The rains finally did come in late October and early November and water levels rose quite dramatically. In fact, it was just what we needed as it gave the river a good flush-through just ahead of the peak Salmon run. It also had the added bonus of getting rid of the accumulated autumn leaves and debris, which in turn will be of benefit to the spawning fish when they reach the redds.

Salmon that had been waiting for rain had been held in a kind of lethargy in the estuary mouth and at last they came in good numbers. The general condition of the fish was excellent and they'd obviously been enjoying the good sand-eel numbers that have been a feature of our beach fishing all year. It was interesting to note the higher-than-average numbers of breeding sea birds such as Puffins, Guillemots and Razorbills this year, and to see the direct correlation in their breeding success with sand-eel density. In the marine environment as well as the river, 2011 was a salutary reminder that so many species are inter-dependant in this way.

Chris Ogborne

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