SALMON ON THE FLY ( HD ).

      

                

Having fished through the beats i had met a few salmon on the fly but most of the fish were just pulling at the tail not really interested in taking it, normally that would be the actions of some playfull grilse but the real answer is that they were burned obviously having been fished over hard by other anglers. The water was in fine flow even though it was at low summer level but you could see the signs that it was starting to colour up with algae even though they are running the left sill to oxyginate it there is only visibility upto 2ft and dropping. I had just got my new Airflo 40 plus extreme fly line and i wanted to test it out against the conditions and also against its predecessor my old origional and now semi retired 40 plus. They have improved the transition between running line and head and that is good news as the transition in the old line was a bulbus affair and pulled at all the eyes on the way out and on retrieving, but i fear that the new running line is a bit thick and this slows down the speed of the head compromising longer casts especially under arm and water bourne casts. The line wasn,t looped so i had to weld my own and to be honest it doesn,t take rocket science to know that the loop on the running line is always going to be  fixed so why not include it in the line in the first place and to add another touch maybe a braided loop in the box for the front loop would be a really good idea as then one could fish away from scratch.

The salmon hit the fly twice but didn't stay so i took the line out of the water and gave it a rest for a few minutes talking to Dean i explained that i was going to run the next fly down past the lie fast and see if the salmon would respond aggressively and it did by taking the size 15 double salar ahilles shrimp fly well down and heading downstream like a bullet. Turning the fish i brought the fight to me and ran the fish in circles allowing my 6 wt switch rod to take all the sting out of the fish and cushion the line finishing the fight in under three and a half minutes. Getting the salmon back green  helps them to survive better after release and with using  size 15 salar hooks there is little or no damage to the fish. The new 40  plus line did its job well but with a few tweaks it could be a great line especially for switch rods and with me heading out to sea for seatrout in salt water soon it will be put to further use and i will let you know how i get on.