Just had a great session, fly fishing in the sun, with Neil from Ilminster at Flowers Farm lakes. Arriving at the lakeside it was great to see everything basked in bright sunshine, although a little chilly first thing I was hoping that the sun would warm up things enough to get some fly activity around mid-day.
It was really interesting talking to Neil, he was originally from Canada and came to England some thirty odd years ago. His father had left him some fly fishing kit so he thought it was about time he gave it a go himself. Having described to me some fishing trips from Canada many years ago, i hope he would not be too disappointed with our fishing over here!!
We started the session with me running through all the tackle we would be using and what it did, Neil was great to teach as you could see he was really taking it all in and would ask plenty of questions as we went. We then started the casting, roll casts first as this really lets someone feel and see how the fly rod work without having to keep the line airborne. After a while Neil was really getting the hang of these rolls and was understanding the basic mechanics of casting so we progressed to the overhead cast, pick up and lay down cast to start, then false casting and before you knew it Neil was shooting a good length of line.
Following the casting we talked about leader set up and fly selection and before long Neil was landing his very first fly caught trout!!
We ended the session with re-capping the casting so Neil can go away and practice then he’s coming back for another session where we will go more in depth into fishing techniques…………………..look forward to seeing Neil again, it was a real pleasure.
