French Flies 2.0

If you read this blog from time to time, you will notice a change in the layout, address, feed address... actually quite a bit has changed.

I had problems trying to manage the format of the last blog as it was an FTP blob hosted on my server, but managed by Blogger. Some features of the Blogger blogs are only available if you host with Blogger using a Blogger address or your own domain, managed by Blogger.

So I set up http://fishing.teggin.com as the new address of the blog. The old addresses (http://www.teggin.com/fishing/ and http://www.teggin.com/peche/) will route to the new address.

Features that are quite neat are the Archive feature that is now hierarchical, there are 5 posts per page, with older posts linked to at the bottom. This improves page loading times and allows a reader to navigate in a logical way through the blog.

I may still tweak the template a bit or change it completely if I find something better out there.

So update your bookmarks and make sure to update your RSS reader to: http://fishing.teggin.com/feeds/posts/default

Pflueger President 2056

I was looking for a reel to match the light brook rod that I recently picked up. This American Pflueger  President 2056 Fly Reel is light and strong with good looks too. Hopefully when loaded with some line that I'm expecting soon it will balance the light rod well. I've greased it up with Hot Sauce and switched from left to right-hand wind.

The 2056 reel is 3-1/2" in diameter, it has a 31/32" spool width and weighs 5.8 oz. It can hold up to #6 line with 30yds. of 20lb breaking stain backing. I'll be loading it with Monic All-Weather clear fly line 4 WT and some 30lb backing that I have lying around.

Pflueger President 2056Features:

• Large arbour spool design
• Forged, machined and anodized aluminium frame and spool
• Oversized ball bearing and one-way clutch bearing
• Patented center-disc drag system for total drag control
• Convertible left/right hand retrieve
• Large rosewood knob
• Easy-release spool switch
• Protective storage bag included

Decathlon Fly Rods

Tom and I have 3 Decathlon Fly Rods. These are relatively inexpensive and do the job of casting and landing fish very well. I'm not too fussed about spending a lot on a rod as long at it is very special or vintage cane, but why pay a fortune for a casual river rod - something that can be pulled out when are on the way home from the lake and you see a couple of brownies in the stream. You don't need a $700 G-Loomis for that.

It is obvious that one should have longer rods for casting further on large rivers and open water and shorter, lighter rods for precise casting in smaller rivers and brooks. It is not just the rod length, but the capacity to carry a certain weigh of line. You don't want a heavy #5 or #6 weight line in a small stream only a couple of meters across, rather you want a light line with a delicate touch.

So looking for lightness and precision, our most recent rod is a small 7'5" Geologic Fly 500 #4 rod. It comes in a nice cordura covered tube. Very light indeed, it will be used with the very light Pflueger President reel that will be arriving soon and 4 weight line - more on both reel and line later.

My personal large river or lake rod is the 8'6" Caperlan Fly 300 #5 rod. I use this with WF6 line on the Vision Koma reels.

Tom mainly uses the older Decathlon Set Fly 8'5" DT4-WF5 rod. We bought this in about 1999 when we first embarked on fly fishing in France. It works really well and is the perfect rod to chuck into the back of the car with the casting rods just in case we get some fly action.

Decathlon have continued to produce good rods over the years. The sub-brand names have changed, but the quality has remained. They reels unfortunately are not up to standard. Their current range of plastic reels are so cheap that they are not locked away in a glass cabinet as the older better quality and more expensive reels used to be.

Upwinged Flies in the Kitchen

I had a small swarm of Upwinged Flies in the kitchen yesterday. Yep, the kitchen. These were either Large Dark Olive (Baetis rhodani), Medium Olive (Baetis vernus) or Pond Olive (Cloeon dipterum) flies. It is probably a Baetis spinner though showing the large turbinate eyes.

I'm not an expert on flies and there are so many different types of these flies - what could they be exactly? No running water nearby, only my little garden pond out the back.

Burning Man pattern

Down at the pond the other day, I bumped into a local fishing with an orange popper that reminded me of the Burning Man pattern that I had seen recently on Global Fly Fisher [link: Burning Man]. They describe it as:

"A strange but efficient foam popper for all kinds of strange fish."

It looked like an easy pattern to make, so I had a go.

I used some orange floating fly line for the legs, orange braid and black cotton for other parts. These four variants took about 20 minutes to knock-up and I have no idea if they will work, but they should send all the right signals to the fish. Apparently you need a few as the fish reduce the length of the legs quite quickly. That sounds like good advice.

polarised fishing glasses

Tom and I use polarised fishing glasses to help us spot fish under the water. Mine are clip-on polarised lenses that attach to my normal glasses magnetically. I can flip them up when I need to see something without the dark lenses. Tom's glasses are from Decathlon. They do the job well, but have a slightly less polarising effect than mine.

I bought my Magna Flip glasses from an eBay store: here.

Tench (Tanche)

Here is a short video clip of a Tench in a local pond, filmed with the polariser filter.

The Tench
The tench or doctor fish (Tinca tinca) is a freshwater and brackish water fish of the cyprinid family found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe

More info:
Wikipedia (English): Tench
Wikipedia (French): Tanche

Polariser Filter

I've recently added a Polariser Filter to my video camera and it really works well to reduce water reflections, cutting out the virtically polarised reflected light.

Check ou this short video clip showing how effective it is.