All "Chewed" up... what a day!!

Above: Toby

Where do I start? I could write a blow by blow account of the day BUT I’m happy at the moment to savour the day. I’ve arrived home after a drive of over 3.5 hours… I’m sore and elated and dotted with a tinge of “what might have been”!

I was due to fish Bristol Water’s Chew Valley Lake a few weeks ago and missed it due to a flu-like virus that knocked me out for a week… so I sold my seat to a fellow PFFA member Toby… you’ll see him on the flyforum as WCB and he sells some wicked fibre for tying flies. I had to visit Bristol on business so Toby and I arranged a meet up on Chew for yesterday, although we’ve spoken a bit on the phone, we’d never met.

Yesterday arrived, slightly overcast with a falling barometer and a stiff breeze (with a new moon!). We duly got our boat and went off to the first drift… on the way we had an good omen from the gods… a seagull crapped on Toby!!

Such was Toby’s luck he had 7 to the boat by lunchtime, I was the “happy” ghillie… unhooking and releasing fish. I had warned Toby that my casting was agricultural at best and Toby generously chose drifts in the afternoon that would put me closer to the action… I’d had follows and knocks but no takes.

My first take was on the drop on the first cast in a shallow bay… sadly it didn’t stick BUT a change of tactic to a floating line was working in my favour. We went on a long drift which we repeated a few times and this produced my first two fish on the floater. We then moved to deeper water where follows on intermediate line (Toby’s line for the day) and my sink tip came thick and fast… Toby was unlucky not to connect with a fish that we both agreed was in the 25lb mark… it was just awesome to watch it slip beneath the boat. I decided to cast and countdown my line and retrieve – it went dead then awoke… it was a BIG fish… I played it for a few minutes… I forget how long, it seemed an eternity and as it went under the boat again my line went slack and I brought home just the fly… ah well it is called “fishing” and not “catching”!

Our last drift of the day took us to an amazing hot spot where I forget how many lost fish Toby had and on one hook up I decided to get my fly in quick only to see it engulfed on the surface by my best fish of the day… a lovely fish of just under 10lb…

In all we boated 15 fish (Toby 10 v David 5… the home team won!) and probably lost as many. Who had the biggest fish… well I’ll guess we’ll never know… Toby graciously said late teens early twenty for the lost big fish of mine BUT we’ll never know as we never saw it… maybe it was Toby’s missed 25lb fish – who knows?

We gave up at 1730hrs having had a thoroughly good day with great banter. I’d like to thank Toby for guiding me yesterday… I had a great time and will be back to Chew to catch that big girl!!

A few photos of the catch from the day (note the jack that had been attacked by Grandma!) all went back well and if you spot blood it is all mine – a lacerated digit!!!