Yesterday - whilst out testing a rod built by Sandy - I had something happen when fishing for the first time. Ever.
I had a hook break on me,
after hooking a fish
It was all quite annoying really, but it goes like this. I was covering a rising trout on a stocked water and was delighted when a broad-side trout rolled over the fly and I tightened into it. For all of a fraction of a second I was in, and then I wasn't
Experience has taught me never to cast again until checking over the leader and flies carefully, so I did so. I was quite astonished to find that the hook had broken just after half way round the bend towards the point
Now the fly in question was amongst the last elk hair caddis flies that I tied when still living in Aberdeenshire and fishing on the Don. In truth that means it was tied 13 or 14 years ago.... it's been in a fly box that
very occasionally gets opened, but it's hardly gone wet/dry/wet/dry etc. Now I had tested the hook was OK before tying the fly on, and it was the very first cast (and last
) that the fly had seen. But despite checking, it still went bang.
So my cautionary tale has some elements to it:
- Always triple check your gear and regularly remove and check flies held in ethafoam/foam fly boxes
- Consider flies over 5 years old to be suspect if they've been stored in a fly box
- Prepare to do some tying... because as I look at a lot of my fly boxes there are great many flies there that are many, many years old - I can't be the only one
My suspicion is the culprit was rust that I couldn't see from being in the box for so long. If I can find the fly - chucked in a bag - then I'll share a photo.
H
