Mental Health - Benfits of Fly Fishing

"Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing” was founded in 2005 to aid in the physical and emotional recovery of wounded or injured military personnel through the art of Fly Fishing. The satisfaction, peace of mind and sense of achievement from the veterans, which I have witnessed first hand, is very satisfying and most importantly aids their progress so that they may lead a normal life.  Of course the benefits of fly fishing are not limited to military veterans, but to everyone who pursues fly fishing worldwide.

The very achievement of fly fishing might almost be classed as meditation practice considering the rhythmic casting action back and fore. Anglers find themselves concentrating on their casting and fishing, thus the mind is occupied and actually can’t think of anything else.  Escaping from the pressing demands of the mind and focusing instead on something entirely different. The curative benefits of being in calm, scenic, surroundings act as a powerful antidote to the stress and strains of daily life.

Fly fishing factors include a lovely peaceful environment / nature / casting action / reduced stress levels / calming focus of the mind to name a few. Speak to some anglers about fly fishing, that they will inform you of their recent catches, equally they may talk about who they met at the fishery or the gorgeous surroundings.

Those who suffer with Tinnitus also receive excellent respite, as running water masks the tinnitus in such a manner that, for the period that they are fishing, it is unnoticeable. I myself suffer greatly from Tinnitus, thus my drive and enthusiasm to fish running waters. 

Life can be tough for all of us at times, but for those who have experienced harrowing acts and are haunted by past experiences, each day can feel like a mountain to climb.

For these people Game Angling and Fly tying can be a life line offering.

• Increased quality of life as they are able to participate in social activities with people from a similar background, who also have similar interests.
• Promotes and enables social interaction.
• Promotes independence and development to their full potential.
• Fly fishing provides individuals with new experiences, goals, personal achievement and a sense of progress.
• Fly fishing increases individual’s self-esteem and confidence.
• Provide an assisted outdoor activity (fishing) to anglers who would otherwise be socially isolated.
• Providing professional individual tuition in fly-fishing at all levels from beginner upwards aids confidence with immediate results.
• Adds structure and routine to their day.
• It is relaxing and therapeutic, a place to go and get away.

You can use Find An Instructor to get in touch with your local GAIA instructor and have a chat about your requirments. 

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Spring Salmon Fishing on the Tay

I like to head up to the Tay in spring.  This short film I shot with my chest camera goes some way as to explaining why...

Below is an excerpt from my diary which goes into a bit more detail.

May 2016
I've been up on the mighty River Tay staying at Kenmore for my regular spring salmon trip. Arrived on Saturday, walked the beat looking for signs of fish and to see what if any change had happened over the last year. Wet a line fishing for trout on the Taymouth Castle beat for a few hours on Sunday night and had a nice brownie.

Tuesday
I was off to fish Bolfracks Estate Upper Beat with my son Mat who paid for the ticket as a birthday treat for me, it turned out to be a fantastic day, you could say it was a Red Letter Day.

Met up with Tomas from Custom Tied Flies, good guy if you need any flies give him a call.  Bob McIntyre called into the beat to see us, I've known Bob for many years and could spend hours talking to him about the various pools and lies, what he doesn’t know about it isn’t worth knowing.  We started on the Point Pool and split the pool between us, Mat started in the middle and myself at the head, set up for both of us was double handed rods. Mat had the first fish of the day - a trout, then it was my turn after a couple of changes of fly I found one that worked – a Willie Gunn produced the goods, a super bar of silver in the shape of a 15lb spring salmon still with sea lice on it.

We saw quite a few fish coming into the pool most of which were silver. Mid way down the pool I had another arm wrenching take, the fight this time was to take a little longer but eventually Mat slid the net under my personal best salmon to date, a cracking 23.5lb beauty.

the day still wasn't done, I'd seen a fish boil a couple of times so I made a few casts in the general area then everything went solid, all I could hear from up the bank was Mat yelling "Are you in again!". He did another fine job of netting the fish this time a smaller fish of about 11.5lbs but bright silver.

 Mat was now getting fed up with netting fish for me so I suppose it was only fair that he had the last fish of the day, another fish of around the 11.5lb mark, this time to a Rapala.  So that brought then end to a perfect day.

Thursday

My next outing was to the Taymouth Castle beat at Kenmore fishing the Chinese Pool, that again showed me the stamp of fish from this lovely piece of water both at affordable prices, spring fishing at its best. 

For more details about what Cheshire Flyfishing can offer click on my GAIA profile at the bottom of this article and follow the link to my website.

If you'd like to experience fishing somewhere new, targeting a new species or developing some new casting skills, get in touch with your local GAIA instructor .  Let them know your requirements and if they can't help you themselves they'll be more than happy to point you in the right direction. 

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What can a GAIA Instructor offer?

Learn the techniques to increase your fishing success. Whether you’re a beginner, improver or an experienced angler looking to learn new techniques – we can help. The Game Angling Instructors’ Association (GAIA) has a vast wealth of experience in all aspects of game angling, and with over 350 members throughout the UK, Europe and the USA, we’re right on your doorstep. 

Booking a lesson with one of our experienced GAIA instructors can save you frustration and wasted time, and give you the knowledge to help you get the most out of your fishing experience.

Including:
• Sorting out that niggling casting fault
• Learn the correct techniques for fishing stillwaters, rivers and saltwater
• An opportunity for some fine-tuning before an upcoming trip
• Single and double-handed casting techniques
• Fly-dressing instruction

All full GAIA members hold the Game Angling Instructors’ Certificate (GAIC) and some, additionally, hold the higher certification of Advanced Professional Game Angling Instructors (APGAI). You can be assured that all GAIA instructors have been tested to a very high standard of technical and practical knowledge, ensuring you receive the finest quality of tuition to make your fishing experience more pleasurable, safe and successful.

If you would like a GAIA Instructor to help you put theory into practice, use Find An Instructor below to get in touch with your local GAIA instructor and have a chat about your requirements.  

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A New Season on the Helmsdale 2018

Like most keen salmon anglers, I eagerly look forward to the start of the new fishing season. For me, fishing for Atlantic Salmon is unlike any other fishing, especially as ecological factors now influence our ability to accurately predict whether it may be a good season or not and unknowingly we might often be fishing an almost barren river. On the majority of rivers we just don’t know what to expect from one year to the next, and although it may sound like an old cliché, It really isn’t just about catching fish,  there is so much more to fishing.

For the past several years I have ventured to the North coast of Scotland for the opening of the River Helmsdale on the 11th January. This is one of the first rivers to open in the UK therefore catching a salmon on opening day could result in it being the first salmon of the year, in the UK or possibly the world! The Helmsdale is a fairly exclusive river and the fishing is offered free for the first 10 days, thus enticing enough die-hard enthusiasts into the area not just for the honour of catching the first fish but also simply to say they have fished the river.

Although we may be fishing for a Springer, this is still winter in the Highlands and the weather can change quickly, and often does, from gale force winds and rain, to snow and sleet or surprisingly it may even be sunny and dry. Modern equipment still makes it pleasurable as enough warm layers and a good breathable jacket will keep us comfortable and as long as your casting ability can cope with extreme winds and you possess a well balanced outfit this experience is one not to be missed.


Okay you may not catch a Springer, but you will probably catch a kelt or two, meet some new and interesting characters, possibly some world champions casters who will often attend, and later in the bar you can participate in a bit of highland dancing or singing along to ‘Jock the Box’ over a wee malt or two. If you are looking for something different that will leave some lasting memories then why not give it a go in 2019. 

Teaching Fly Fishing 

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Find an Instuctor

Author Chris Hauge

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Teaching! I like to call it  "Loading the clients tool box up with casts that catch fish."  I teach a wide variety of client's in single and double handed fly casting. Clients vary from total beginners, intermediate casters, advanced casters, clients training to become qualified instructors, group workshops and some other clients that come along especially to prepare for destination trips so that they are well prepared to get the maximum out of their trip.

These trips are expensive so being well prepared gives you the best chance to maximise your opportunity to catch fish. When I get a total beginner coming for lessons we start with the basics. Roll cast and Pick up and lay down. Then we start to add shooting line, dealing with difficult wind conditions and double hauling.

As the client improves we are able to add casts with more difficulty. The more casts my clients have in their tool box the more fish they will catch.

You can have the best fly box in the world but if you can’t put the fly in the zone you won’t catch any fish. For further information please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Why see an Instructor?

Bob and Vera Carlson, GAIA Instructors, explain why they think it's good idea to see an instructor.

Golfers and tennis players invariably look to the professionals for instruction before starting to play their sport, so why is it that anglers often have all the gear but no idea? They head for their local water, copy casting from the angler next to them and the line ends up in a heap in front of them. This is a very frustrating way to start and fly fishing is often abandoned at the first hurdle.

If you book a lesson with a GAIA casting instructor they will set you off on the correct path from the start. As a beginner it is even better to have a lesson before you have bought any equipment because your instructor will suggest the appropriate tackle for you to purchase based on the type of fishing you will be doing. Most instructors will have good-quality equipment for you to use during your lesson.

A typical lesson for a beginner could be three hours. It must always include a safety briefing and could then cover looking at the equipment and how it works, some basic knots, assembling the equipment and tying up leaders, casting both roll cast and overhead, bite detection and how to play a fish, fly selection and practical fishing. It’s important that the lessons are fun and the budding angler is usually confident to go fishing alone after his or her lesson with a high chance of success.

A seven-hour session is ideal for a more experienced client who has been fishing for a while, often developed a few casting faults, wants to learn some new casts to help with wind, distance and suchlike and progress to learning different fishing techniques.

“My fly line lands in a heap in front of me.” “I always get knots in my leader.” “My arm aches when casting.” “Other people cast much further.” “I’m always hooking the bushes behind me.”

These are some of the casting problems instructors frequently hear and if you book a two-hour session with a GAIA instructor this will usually be sufficient time to solve the issues – they will ask you to relax and cast as you normally would and while you are casting, your instructor will be looking where the faults occur. If there are several they will be sorted out one at a time in a structured manner with explanations about what is happening and how to correct the fault.

Have you booked that expensive tropical fishing trip? You need to be able to double haul, oval cast, cope with the wind and manage your line. Do you fancy river fishing and need to know how to control your line in those currents? Do you have to go home when the wind blows? Does your cast have a loud wooosh, wooosh, wooosh sound, which Vera likens to a flock of Canada geese flying overhead?

Your GAIA instructor is qualified to help you with any of the above or other casting and fishing issues you may have to help you thoroughly enjoy the sport. This could include showing you leader make-up, knot tying, choosing the correct fly and how to fish it, how to reduce your false casting (remember there are no fish in the sky) and how to choose properly balanced tackle. Remember, fly fishing should be fun and the casts effortless.

If you would like a GAIA Instructor to help you put theory into practice, use Find An Instructor below to get in touch with your local GAIA instructor and have a chat about your requirements.  

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PREPARING FOR THE TROPICS

Foreign trips seem to be getting increasingly expensive, ever more proving the point that it really does pay to do your homework. I've had the good fortune to have fished in a lot of places around the world and caught some amazing fish, but without research and preparation I'd probably have been considerably less lucky!

Firstly, you need confidence in your ability to get your fly to the fish, so how's your casting? Can you effortlessly add line speed with a double haul? Are you happy with the basics of a Belgian Cast? How quickly and comfortably can you get into the “ready position”?

Spending time with an experienced GAIA Instructor will help get you in the frame of mind you'll need to succeed when conditions get tough. There is almost always wind when fishing the Flats. A long range cast from a skiff, if you opt for a conventional overhead cast, will likely find your pretty Tarpon fly embedded in the back of your head.

Tropical fish are moving all the time, they won't wait while you do multiple false casts. You need the ability to get sufficient line out of the rod tip quickly, to be in the `ready position`, scanning the water for that dark shadow coming your way, keeping your eye on that shadow before doing an accurate cast. It's an amazing and totally exhilarating experience when it all comes together, but take if from me, a bit of focused practice before you travel will so often mean the difference between fish and no fish.

Experienced GAIA Instructors can also help prepare you for your trip with practical advice on clothing, flies, leaders and fly line choices.

If you would like a GAIA Instructor to help you put theory into practice, use Find An Instructor below to get in touch with your local GAIA instructor and have a chat about your requirements.

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How to tie the Davy knot

The Davy knot was created by Davy Wotton and boasts an extremely high breaking strength. It is used for tying the fly onto the leader and it is much smaller than most other knots so it does not impede the action of the fly as it swims in the water. Furthermore, there is less waste with a Davy knot, unlike a blood knot, for instance, because with practice the tag can be kept very short. This provides a benefit with droppers lasting longer due to less wastage when flies are frequently changed.

Illustrations supplied by John Symonds 

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Women who like fly fishing

In the last eighteen months I have had a steady increase in ladies contacting me for lessons from total beginners, improvers and a couple of ladies even wanting to become instructors.

I don’t know why this has suddenly happened, but I must say all the women I have taught have been a pleasure to work with. They have all given one hundred percent concentration and I very rarely have to slow them down and ask them to ease up on the power like I do with male students.

This may be a generalisation but its my observation that women seem to have a more relaxed manner about them, they don’t force the cast as much as males do. Some of my lady clients have now become very accomplished casters. I have a couple of ladies who have lessons on a regular basis, usually just before a destination fishing trip to brush up. They have recently had a series of lessons with micro skagit and switch rod set ups prior to a very successful trip to Iceland.

I think their next trip is to Russia later this year. I look forward to seeing them again prior to that trip.

This year I also mentored Marina Gibson through her exam to become a qualified instructor. 

She is one of a few of women who have travelled up from London to have private one to one lessons. That’s commitment.

Susan Skrupa I feel has the right attitude to become very good. Her thirst to learn is very impressive and she improved immensely on her first lesson.

I look forward to watching her progress on future lessons.

It's fantastic for the sport to have this influx of passionate lady anglers.

It is imperative that any women wanting to take up the sport should get some professional instruction, otherwise, like so many men, you will struggle and probably fall away from this magnificent sport.

For any women interested in fly fishing lessons please use our Find An Instructor tool below to get in touch with your local GAIA instructor who can book you in for lessons and offer advice on equipment etc. Why not give them a call and have a chat about your requirements.  

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Salt Water Fishing

I have been fortunate enough to salt water fish all around the world. Florida, Mexico, Dubai, Kenya, Thailand, Spain and Turkey to mention a few for a wide variety of fish from GT, Sail Fish, Bone Fish, Tarpon, Queen Fish, King Fish, Snook, Barracuda, Shark the list goes on and on. But probably the hardest fighting fish I have ever caught is the Yellowfin Tuna. I can only describe catching one like the equivalent of standing on a motorway bridge and casting your fly onto a passing HGV and hanging on for dear life.  They really are something else.

One funny story was whilst on a trip in Mauritius. I took my wife out with me on a guided trip as she didn’t fancy staying at the hotel alone. The guide took us out onto a small sand bank 13 miles out at sea. The bank was about half the size of a football pitch. After we had fished off the front of the sand bank, landing a few GT, the guide decided it was time to move onto a reef a couple more miles out at sea. He asked my wife if she wanted to come or did she want to stay and read her book and we would pick her up on the way back. “How long will you be” she asked. To which the guide replied not long so she decided to stay put.

Three hours later after some great fishing we returned. You can only imagine the look on her face. It was priceless and she had completed a list of her top 10 desert island discs. We still laugh about it now. (Or at least I do). Happy days.

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The Roll-Cast Pick-UP

When visiting stillwaters, I quite often see beginners retrieving far too much fly line through the rod tip. This invariably results in far too many false casts to try and get a sufficient amount of fly line back out through the rod tip rod to load and deliver the fly.

Too many false casts can not only spook fish, but can become very tiring and frustrating – and after all, fish live in the water and not the air, so the longer our fly is in the water the more chance we have of catching a fish.

Once the correct techniques to perform the basic roll cast and overhead cast have been mastered, they form the solid foundations to create all kinds of combination casts.  One of the most useful of these combination casts is a roll-cast pick-up.

As its name implies, it starts out as a basic roll cast that ‘picks up’ into and overhead cast – without first allowing the fly and line to land on the water. It’s a cast that allows us to keep the fly in the water for longer and fish it close in, thereby covering more water and increasing the potential chances of a following fish taking our fly.

It’s also a great cast to use when fishing from a boat when loch-style drifting and we want to keep the fly ‘on the hang’ to induce a take before recasting out again. With a sufficient amount of fly line outside of the rod tip to roll cast and load the rod, we can get the fly back out and in the zone efficiently and as quickly as possible. It’s a win-win situation that helps keep our mental focus on catching fish.

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Spider fishing

Spider fishing's tradition goes back century's.  The origins of the simple north country spider wet fly pattern – often referred to as the ‘soft hackle’ fly – can be traced back to early 19th Century Yorkshire, when descriptions appeared in an 1807 manuscript by Ilkley farmer John Swarbrick.  But it wasn’t until around a hundred years later that the document was eventually published.   Shortly after the fly came to prominence in Thomas Evan Pritt’s 1885 publication of the classic “Yorkshire Trout Flies”, later renamed “North Country Flies”. The book gained instant popularity by providing fly patterns for each month through the season, how to fish them and when.

The history behind the method needs to be treated with respect and a "chuck it and chance it" approach will be largely unproductive  When executed properly spider fishing is a method both satisfying and effective in equal measure.

Fly rod and leader set up are all important in any one of these methods.  Fly selection and presentation are key to targeting your quarry.  A GAIA Instructor can help optimise your learning of these methods by eliminating bad habits before they take hold.  

Learning good technique means you understand what's going wrong and why, resulting in the abilty to self correct with ease.

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Traumatised By Tailing Loops?

Often wrongly referred to as wind knots in the leader, tailing loops are a common problem that affect many anglers as they progress from beginner to intermediate.  A tailing loop is where the top of the fly line crosses the bottom of it twice when casting, resulting in an inefficient or failed cast, knots in the leader and tangles in the line. 


Causes Tailing loops are caused by a concave path or U-shaped dip of the rod tip. The most common causes are:

•  Inappropriate application of power – a concave rod tip path can occur when applying too much power too early in the cast, creating a ‘power spike’.

•  Casting stroke and rod arc are too small – it’s important to match the size of the casting stroke/arc to the amount of flex in the rod to maintain a straight-line path of the rod tip.

•  Creeping forward (or backward) – creep can occur when we subconsciously start moving the rod tip in the opposite direction too early, resulting in reducing your casting stroke.

The Cure

•  Ensure the casting stroke and arc are sufficient for the amount of line being cast – think short line, short stroke. With a longer line, everything increases: arc, power, pause and stroke.

•  Start slow and concentrate on accelerating smoothly throughout the casting stroke to a crisp, positive stop – think smooooth!

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