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Post by patsolver on Feb 11, 2006 4:41:21 GMT -5
I have never fly fished for coarse fish, been badgered by the children to take them fishing on the River Trent in Nottingham and some surrounding ponds, but dont know where to start. Need some serious help,
1. What flies for fish - anyone fish the Trent who might be able to say type of fish I assume, Chub, Dace, Gudgeon, Barbel, Roach
2. How do you fish the flies?
3 What size line and leader are needed
4. How do you hook them ??
As you can see any help will be appreciated.
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Post by welshy on Feb 12, 2006 6:14:23 GMT -5
You may have better luck with fishing small Ptn's or hares ears accross and down into fishing looking areas and just wait for the plucks, leave um have it and they will hook themselves, or just a small raise of the rod will get um also. Remember if your taking kids they needs lots of fish no matter what size to keep them interested, you dont want them getting bored, also maybe try a pink shrimp type fly used for trout and grayling as they may take these for maggots. I know its not very fly fishign like but maybe pre bait by throwing some maggots every so often into the river and lettig them drift down from you, attracting the fish so when your flies go over them they will take them.
Welshy
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yaffle
Junior Member
Posts: 64
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Post by yaffle on Feb 19, 2006 9:41:39 GMT -5
ive had rudd / roach on buzzers and a cats whiskers nomad in Cornwall
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Post by The Handsome Stick on Mar 8, 2006 10:53:14 GMT -5
I have never fly fished for coarse fish, been badgered by the children to take them fishing on the River Trent in Nottingham and some surrounding ponds, but dont know where to start. Need some serious help, 1. What flies for fish - anyone fish the Trent who might be able to say type of fish I assume, Chub, Dace, Gudgeon, Barbel, Roach 2. How do you fish the flies? 3 What size line and leader are needed 4. How do you hook them ?? As you can see any help will be appreciated. I'm not sure the age of your children but I think fly fishing might not be right for their introduction to fishing. I'd get them interested in the fishing first with a very simple method such as float fishing with short whip somewhere choc full of fish. Fly fishing is a steep learning curve. I think they'll be more willing to put in the effort when a love of fishing has been established.
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Post by Big Al on Mar 12, 2006 20:06:35 GMT -5
I agree. Children should never start off casting the fly. Start them with a worm, or maggot if you must.
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Post by whistlekiller on Apr 2, 2006 9:37:19 GMT -5
I had more luck catching trout on my first trip out fly fishing as a total novice with no instruction than I ever did fishing with bait, despite casting like a clown and tangling all over the place several times it was almost too simple.
I realise that rivers are a far more daunting prospect but this is also the case with a box of bait, pole, float or feeder rod.
I would take them to an easy small still water venue. I don't see the harm in taking kids to fly fish it. They'll catch because trout aren't as clever as carp (and most other coarse fish IMHO) probably because they often don't get a second chance to refuse a hook! In fact, the only other fish I've ever caught more daft than a trout is a pike as they are caught over and over again, in my case on pieces of painted wood and plastic! Maybe it's a predator thing......all teeth and no brain.
Fly fishing also has the advantage of keeping children occupied. Having to keep casting reduces their boredom threshold and apart from that prevents them from chucking half the local bakery in to get fish interested........
Having said all that, whatever my opinion of the mental capacity of trout, I do enjoy fishing for them and much prefer fly fishing (and lure fishing) to any other forms of the sport having taken carp, pike and chub as well as mullet and damselfish on the method. Ease of tackle transport, mobility, and usually something to eat when you get home is always a bonus to me, especially on after work short sessions.
As an interesting aside, my wife (who is pretty handy with a fly rod) refuses to coarse fish on the grounds that it's too difficult to cast out!
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Post by whistlekiller on Apr 2, 2006 9:41:54 GMT -5
Err....sorry, missed off the bottom half of my post (above). I've found the best flies for coarse fish are gold headed bloodworm and various shrimp patterns fished fairly low in the water. You can also try some sort of floating bread imitation for the chub although they tend to be the hardest to catch of all.
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Post by Sewinbasher on Apr 4, 2006 4:26:17 GMT -5
I agree with Handsome Stick and Welshy, when kids start fishing above all else they need to catch fish and fly fishing is not the best way to do this. They don't need to have the frustrations of not being able to cast properly added to the overrriding problem of catching fish.
Fly is not the best way to catch chub, even if using poppers (apart from maybe late Summer/Autumn), catching chub on a fly can actually be quite challenging and the best bait is maggots, worm, bread or slugs fished on conventional coarse tackle.
As soon as they have been "hooked" on fishing and can physically cope with casting a fly rod, that's the time to get them interested in fly fishing. Although plenty of kids start earlier I would say that somewhere around 12-14 is a good age to start.
If you do use the fly on the Trent, only dace, bleak and chub are going to present realistic targets. Barbel, roach and perch can be caught on fly but the swims that hold them on the Trent will not lend themselves to fly fishing at all let alone to youngsters.
On ponds you can catch roach, perch, pike and carp on fly but for roach you will really need to be able to see the fish take the fly and a small PTN will work. For carp a floating fly that looks like a pellet or dog biscuit will work with the real thing thrown in as groundbait. Perch will hit a small lure and pike will hit anything that moves, but bigger is best and remember to use a wire leader tippet.
Dace take and reject the fly very quickly and most people will not strike quickly enough to hook the dace and... if you do strike fast enough, you are going to be way too fast for almost any other fish and will have to "unlearn it".
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