Journal

Admittedly, through eagerness, we all tend to arrive too early during any fishing trip, let alone one planned for evening time. I’m lucky in that my nearest river is a mere three miles from home, so I’m there five minutes. This means I needn’t rush and in the height of summer my arrival time might be as late as 10pm.  By now, all the other anglers are packing down with remarks of “a lack of fish”.  Little do they know that things are about to ‘hot up”.  Often the best of any action begins just on dark, which in summer is later than you might think, especially the further north you are.

Before venturing out for an evening on the river, it’s vital to get the lie of the land with a daytime visit. Now, you’re able to identify the access and exit points of certain pools and also determine where deep water exists, which is to be avoid in the fading light. You’ll also get a feel for the nature of the water you aim to fish, where those faster currents occur, and of course where flows fall slack. It’s also surprising the number of anglers who turn up to enjoy a spot of evening fishing without a head torch. Not only is this vital for changing flies as darkness falls, a torch beam is always handy when unhooking and releasing trout. Whatever you do, refrain from sending beams of light out over the water as this can alarm nearby trout. Although the phrase “I need a larger landing net” is a standing joke amongst anglers, a large rim landing net can be a massive advantage is poor light as it enable us to net trout more quickly with less likelihood of missing them in the dark when attempting to scoop up a fish, hell bent on heading away from the margins.

Depending on fly life, or a certain hatch (caddis for example), evening sport might be short and sweet, perhaps lasting all of an hour. Aware time is precious now, a tangled leader at the start of any activity can see us frantically fumbling around to sort out the mess.  Poor light doesn’t help the problem and the more we rush the worse things get. Before we know it, twenty odd minutes have slipped by and feeling rush, we never quite perform as good as perhaps we should.  Carrying a spare outfit and your set-up, means you can simply pick this up as though nothing ever happened, leaving the offending leaders to be re-tied at home in decent light. A favourite outfit with the Guideline team is the Tactical LPX  904 – sensitive enough to protect finer tippets, yet has sufficient backbone to subdue larger trout, which often lurk on dark. Modestly priced, it won’t break the bank either! 

Nervous creatures at the best of times, a trout’s senses often go into overdrive during low water. The upshot being, our tackle needs refinements to ensure the business end lands like thistledown in slack flows. Whilst I’m happiest with tippets of approx 0.14-0.15mm dia (approx 4.5lb) this can confidently be reduced to 0.13mm (approx 3lb) without the worry of breakages when using the above mentioned 4-weight outfit. The idea of dropping down in diameter has nothing to do with trout seeing our monofilament, after all, a ruddy great piece of iron protrudes out of our fly’s backside! It’s geared towards giving imitations freedom of movement, so they conform with surface currents to appear convincing. Granted, a thickness  0.02mm sounds like nothing, but you’ll be surprised how effective such diligence can be. My preference is copolymer type monofilaments due to their supple nature, Guideline Power Strike Plus copolymer ticks all the boxes here with 5x (0.148mm) being my ‘go to’ diameter for larger flies and 6x (0.128) perfect for smaller patterns. Where currents create a riffle, our leader/tippet is easily disguised by the broken surface. However where slacker currents occur the surface may remain calm, which means the telltale wake that can alert trout. It’s as well then to degrease your tippet section in such circumstances. 

Whilst the static dry fly tempts its share of trout, in the fading light, trout often become a little braver.  Now, working your fly not only creates a wake that attracts fish, but due to the resulting constant tension, we’re able to detect takes by touch, rather than sight. This is extremely important given our eyesight becomes impaired because of the growing darkness. Selecting an imitation with the appropriate wing colour can massively increase our odds.  If casting towards a dark area, maybe a tree lined shore, or one where a hills create a dark backdrop then select flies with white or yellow colours wings/posts.  Conversely, when casting out towards a sinking sun, or where a silvery shimmer is evident then dressings with black, or dark wing shades will be more obvious to us. In the growing darkness, our dry flies might inadvertently sink without us being aware of this.  Knotting on flies dressed with buoyant materials like foam and deer hair does help. However, a treatment of Guideline Liquid Floatant and Powdered Floatant keeps them riding high.