How To Fish

How To Fish, by Chris Yates. Published by Penguin, 2007

I have watched a few of the Passion for Angling programs and was entertained by the aproach and zen-like attitude to fishing of Chris Yates and Bob James. I too like to simplify things and try and get in tune with the water, nature and the fish. Chris Yates seems to be a sort of guru of classic fishing with a holistic approach and using split-cane rods and center-pin reels.

You probably know that Chris Yates caught the biggest fish in the UK (c '80s), the giant 51-pound carp at Redmire pond in 1980. That feat certainly puts him up amongst the best, but one gets the feeling when reading the book that the author considers himself as a modern Isaac Walton. I would have been happier if this book was called: How I Fish.

Don't be misled by the title of the book though. It is not a how-to manual. It doesn't give away secrets, it doesn't tell you where to fish, how to fish or how to rig a trace and it doesn't go into detail on bait and tackle. It does tell you, in the first person, how Chris Yates fishes in a series of tales and memories of his childhood and youth. We hear of his friends who all seem to enjoy drinking tea and eating cake on the riverbank; we learn of his exploits in all sorts of weather and his aproach to stalking fish.

The central theme of the book shows how one can become obsessed with one particular species of fish. We discover how Chris Yates became interested in fishing, fished around the UK for various species of fish, and now how he has become infatuated with one species of fish - the perch. At least that is what this book is about - Chris Yates has written other books on other species of fish, but this one raises the perch higher than the rest.

After catching a few perch the other day on a wet nymph and a fly rod, I personally don't see any mystique surrounding the fish and can't understand how someone can become so obsessed with one type of species. Sure I like to catch trout, but I'm happy catching anything... if I catch anything at all ;-)

As the book concentrates on perch fishing, it is rather bemusing to see that the only colour photo of a fish on the back inside cover is not a perch, but rather a chub - a nice one at that. The stories culminate in a frenzy of fishing by Chris Yates and his band of merry men on a private river fishing 'til they drop - and then they all head off to the pub in typical English tradition.

An interesting read overall. An insight into British coarse fishing for any non-Brit who may be intrigued why the English drink so much tea, don't eat the fish they catch and why they get so excited over little river fish.

Get this book at:

The Loue river vally, Doubs, France

We've returned from a trip to the Doubs region in eastern France where we tried a little fishing on the Loue river. We have seen quite a bit of trout there before on previous trips, but we never fished there due to a lack of licences. This time, we picked up a couple of weekly licences and tried some lures as the river was much to strong for fly fishing. In the week we were there I didn't even see a trout let alone catch one! What a shame. I did however get quite a bit of practice with my lure casting. Here are some photos of the river.

The 'source' of the river Loue. Actually the river is water from the river Doubs that has gone underground in a few places to the south-east and come out here (see below for how they found this out). The source has some powerful flows and there are a few hydro-electric power stations taking advantage of the force of the water.
A few kilometres downstream, the village of Lods sits picturesquely on the river. As you see the flow is strong after a month of heavy rain. Downstreram from Lods is the town of Ornans and further down again is Chenecey Buillon with it's arched stone bridge over the river.
Normally, there is flow between the central arches and the arches on either side are dry. The area immediately around the bridge itself is a reserve, but the fishing up and down the river here is some of the best on the whole river.
Down from Chenecey is Quingy where we were fishing - or at least trying to fish. The locals suspected that with the heavy rain, most of the fish had been literally washed downstream. We saw a few barbel that were unceremoniously chucked out of the river as they are an alien species and considered a threat to the trout and local species.

How the source of the Loue was found not to be a unique source, but that it is actually a deviation of the Doubs river.
In the summer of 1901 during an accidental fire at the Pernod distilleries at Pontarlier, a million litres of Absinthe was dumped into the river Doubs in an effort to prevent an explosion in the cellars. Absinthe is a green aniseed liqueur. Two days later, the waters of the Loue river was the opaque opalescent white colour and taste of Absinthe and the fish were drunk! The underground channels were thus discovered and were later confirmed by a geological survey.

Brown Stonefly strikes again...

The brown Stonefly nymph in the post below is amazing. It catches all sorts of fish.

 

Today we were at the lake trying to hook one of many trout that were swirling around figuring out the hierarchical pecking order between themselves (what is that activity called?). We pulled out a few rainbow trout and I hooked a 40cm fish, but it escaped when we tried to land it. I then had a go with the fly rod and instead of the trout biting, I got bites straight away from some perch that were in the shallows.


I was aiming at the small fish to get my eye in before going for the trout, but I hooked a few of these little fighters. I was quite surprised. I let them get on with their business, but failed after that to even land a trout.

Funny day indeed.

More info on the Perch (Perca fluviatilis):
Wikipedia (English): European perch
Wikipedia (French): Perche commune

The greyling's cousin

Well the weather service got it all wrong. Although blustery, the front passed over us with only a few drops of rain at dawn. The rest of the day was sunny and fine. We went fishing after lunch and tempted the trout and greyling of the steams. Tom and I ended back where I caught the greyling yesterday. At first we saw a few small fish - not sure exactly what they were, but then we saw a couple of larger greyling take up position in the stream, head facing into the current. Perhaps they were related to yesterday's fish. I tried a fluffy little fly with no luck and then changed to this brown stonefly pattern (with a 22mm hook), below, that hung a few inches under the surface and one of the greyling took it straight away.

Unfortunately the fish got away as we were landing it. We need to work on our landing procedures a bit better. It all gets a bit chaotic when a fish takes the fly and we fluff about bringing it in, getting the camera out and trying to take a shot. Anyway, we had fun. Tom was a bit frustrated getting his line tangled up a bit, but he was happy that he saw so many fish through his polarised glasses. If you have the patience to pause a little you will see one little fish and then by his movements, you'll suddenly see a whole lot more. We are so lucky to have such a nice chalk stream virtually all to ourselves.