Faking it

The path of the angler is often circular. I started as a bait fisher at the age of four (my daughter caught her first fish at the age of three and a half). But not until thirty years later did I blunder into the strange and wonderful world that is fly fishing. 

I've kept my hand in with coarse tackle though and perhaps because of a             familiarity with artificial flies, a few years back the newly available fake baits seemed.. well.. quite natural to me. So on the float and ledger rods I enjoyed early success with fake corn, fake bread, fake luncheon meat, fake maggots, fake worms .. fake you name it..

Earlier last year I started to think how these plastics might cross back over into fly fishing style presentations. I had great fun last summer taking all manner of coarse species on a fake maggot cast on my little three weight fly rod.

A 3lb perch showing the effectiveness of fake bait presentations

More recently I have caught the ultralight bug and here too the fake bait scores.  When my gorgeous new UL outfit arrived and was duly spooled up with the finest of braids I was too excited to wait for the softbaits and special weights to arrive. I tied on a size 10 carp hook dropshot style and pinched a swan shot onto the ten inch tag end of my palomar knot. Then a fake little 2 inch bloodworm went on the hook and I was good to go.

a nice little perch with the fake bloodworm still lip-hooked

A couple of brief visits to the Grand Union turned up blank but on the third try I christened my new rod with a 3lb perch on the fake bloodworm. Unable to contain my excitement, the next day I mounted a lightening lunchtime raid on my beloved little river. I planned meticulously and calculated that I had exactly 35 minutes of fishing time once at my chosen swim. My crude (according to my UL fanatic friends) rubber bloodworm rig was flicked under a far bank overhang and in the closing minutes a lovely chub of 4lb 10 oz was horsed out from the tangle of branches.

This beautiful brassy chub took the fake blood worm in the back eddy of a strong current.

Now I was beginning to become convinced that this was a killer tactic and for a while it became my go to method. More good perch followed before eventually the call of my fly rod and streamers sulking in the corner became too loud to ignore. However, future plans include a special fake corn rig for tackling tench on my five weight fly rod. Watch this space.. oh what fun!