Size doesn't matter... but it helps!

You sometimes get that feeling in your water that the day is going to be good... not often as we would like BUT I just had to leave work early today.

1600 hrs and I was away from the desk and by 1700 hrs almost at the lake... My hollow tie was deployed in several marks but all failed to attract... BUT I knew I was in the wrong place! As the sun started to dip I decided to go to a mark where I'd lost a reasonable pike previously and decided to play hardball... I knew that I'd scored in this mark with dark flies... black or olive and decided to use one of my pal, Simon Graham's ties. Simon has become a great pal over the ether and we occasionally phone each other to chew the fat... I look forward to tying along side him at the BFFI in October!

I have digressed the tube fly... very wet at the moment is an olive raccoon tail, gold flash and brown raccoon head with a gold conehead... I armed it with a Sakuma Manta 2/0...

I cast into a mark where I'd had a loss earlier this year casting beyond the lilies and bringing the fly back on both sides of the V... Nothing was doing. However there is another slot in the lilies 6ft away but a difficult cast... more a back cast between the shrubbery and cast to the open water but then cast it onto the corner of the small lily pads... hopping it over the top of them and then dropping it into the water. Second cast and as it just dropped into the water a bait fish went vertical and with a boil of the water I was in...

Boy did this fish run for open water... a strong fish that I was keen to subdue quickly and get back in quickly... My newly built rod, a self build Harrison Lohric 9' 9# was perfection itself and at no point did I feel out of control...

So between my pal Simon Graham and my friends Steve Harrison and Mike Helliwell at Harrison Advanced Rods I banked a personal best at 16lb...

The photos are from the phone again... and thanks to the lad who took the photos!