GOING FISHING with Kotare

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33442, 25 January 1974, Page 15

GOING FISHING with Kotare

Small boys, wives and girl friends wouldn’t understand, hut 1 can’t think of a surer way to taking up golf than knowing that whenever you go trout fishing 1 ou will come home with a limit bag. The first occasion would generate a glow of the most intense satisfaction. The next occasion would be confirmation that at last your skill and experience were beginning to show through. The third occasion would dangerously puff up your mounting self-esteem. The fourth would sow seeds of a best-seller which would relegate Izaak Walton’s little book to the status of wrapping paper for fish and chips. But after your tenth limit bag on 10 consecutive outings, I’m willing to bet that most of the joy would be gone from your trout fishing. It certainly would be gone from mine. I believe, as many fishermen believe, that the peaceful satisfaction one draws from angling stems more from the sights and sounds above water than the number of fish taken from below it. Nevertheless, there’s a fine balance between what may be regarded as a sickening number of fish, and what may be considered a sickening absence of fish. Endless problems Fortunately, the scales for most of us are weighted on the light side. The imponderables in all kinds of sport fishing pose endless problems. One day you might swear there were no fish, not even a single cockabully, in a particular stream. You might be able to search every inch of pool and rapid and glide. And yet the next day the same water might be alive with fish. One day you might take trout in what the textbooks tell you are impossible conditions. The next, in idea! conditions, casting like a champion, you won’t touch a fish all day And that sort of experience is almost as off-

putting as the prospect of the “never-failing success” promised readers of some of our earlier angling books. People who are not fishermen must surely think all anglers mentally deficient; too many fish cause them distress, just as too few. The times that all kinds of bad luck prevent anglers from coming home with more than one sorry specimen 1 Luckily for our self-es-teem there are almost as many reasons for not catching fish as there are bits of satellite in orbit. I reckon I know most of them, but they are never called reasons by non-fishermen — always excuses. Other things being equal, as they mostly are — the weather moderate, the water in good order, fish plainly feeding — why is it that some days we come home with no fish, some days with one, some with three, and on very rare occasions sometimes with a limit? Mi out lake no The consistently successful angler is the man who won’t take no for an answer. He doesn't allow local practices and practitioners to inhibit his fishing. He ha< normally read widely, knows where fish can be expected at any given time, and fishes right out to the boundaries of the local trout fishing regulations. He is an all-rounder, well-praciised n dry fly, nymph, wet fly, and lure techniques on the one hand, and spin-casting on the other. Because an inquiring mind, complemented by experience, has taught him so. he values and profits by an ability to fish upstream and downstream with an equal facility, and to vary his methods until he begins to catch fish. Too many of us fish vir fually the same way all the time, because this is the way that has proved reward ing in the past. The success ful angler rings the changes constantly experimenting quick to switch from lure tc nymph, dry fly to spoon, wet fly to natural insect. Oh yes. provided the regulations allow, this angler knows very well the attraction of natural fly or insect for trout apparently uninte-

rested in anything else the angler can offer. Perhaps too manv of us are purists. We may not be as unforgiving of wet-fly exponents as dry-fly bigots on some English chalk-streams, but we may consider streamer-fly fishing downstream the be-all and end-all of angling, or spin-casting, or up-stream nymph fishing The successful angler knows no firm allegiance to any technique. He employs the whole range of legal trout-fishing methods — and enjoys them ail. He will use two lures, of different colours, to shorten the time necessary to find the trout’s preference that day. He will probably use surprisingly few patterns — but have several sizes of each one. He will fish at different depths, retrieving at different speeds, and he will use the finest nylon he dare, until he begins to take fish. He won’t w'aste time on plainly unproductive stretches of water, especially at a lake, but will move some miles if necessary to discover where fish are being caught. He is more certain of the whereabouts of fish in rivers and streams Especially in hot summer weather he will expect to take fish from rapids, where the water is well oxygenated, and in the evenings from th'- shallowing tails of pools. The all-rounder enjoys his consistent measure of success. But even he will shake his head at the prospect of unlimited limit bags.