The lack of rain fall over the summer months meant that the rivers were very low and this had a knock on effect on the salmon and sea trout fishing, normally sea trout would run up a river on a spit but this year things were very quiet. The main run of sea trout happened around June and July with a quiet period in August and then we got a small run of Estuary trout in mid September till the end of the season. The size of fish was down on last year as the average fish was about one pound compared to almost two pounds the previous season. Even the larger trout didn't show up till we had some water on the last day of the season but again they were few and far between. Having to get my new rod from Mark at Tackle Discounts.UK as there were no suppliers here that had an eight foot eight weight fly rod for sale it was definitely a great bargain and really served its purpose well because having very low lying trees here and underwater snags the rod enabled me to cast under the tree canopy and it also had the power to stop good fish from running out of the pools. The weight forward fly line was purchased for only twelve euros from Dan at Halfway Tackle and surprisingly for a cheap line it was still in great condition even though it was dragged through stones,bushes, gravel and thorns while night fly fishing. With the low water i was using a 12lb copolymer leader as the flurocarbon was sinking too fast and kept snagging up the flies on the bottom but with the copolymer it allowed me to retrieve the flies slowly without that issue. These days the copolymer and flurocarbon lines have the same diameters but the fluro is heavier and sinks the flies faster, great in fast or deep water but not so good if your fishing shallow or slow water with a slow figure of eight retrieve. Matching the different leader materials to standard or weighted flies allowed me to cover all aspects of night fly fishing without having to resort to using sinking lines in the deep pools later in the night when the fishing went quiet. There were still a few times later into the nights when sinking lines accounted for trout in the deeper pools but not enough for me to change from my tactics of combining floating lines and weighted flies with coploymer and fluro leaders. Even by simply tying in some lead wire or gold beads onto the hooks before tying up my sea trout patterns and combining this with a fluro tippet helped me achieve the depth later on in the night when the fish went down deeper into the pools. The most important thing after you have got your tackle, line and flies sorted out has to be the casting, i have seen people fly fishing at night and the fly line goes out further than the flies due to bad casting and poor turn over, they might as well be fishing in the field. I prefer to use a short double haul cast and this powers out the fly line and always puts the flies down perfectly leaving the point fly furthest away from me, knowing that your flies are laid out perfectly and are fishing straight away improves your catch rate and also cuts down on tangles which are a pain in the dark. Another important thing while fly fishing at night is your accuracy and soft turnover , splashing fly line on the water is not good for your night fishing and also lining trout by casting over them definitely will lower your catch rate. Always start your fishing close in before you decide to cover all the river as in darkness trout can be any where and working the river in an arc from short casts to longer casts will cover more trout and improve your catch rate, also don't be afraid to cast upstream with your flies you would be surprised the amount of fish that i have caught casting upstream on wet fly.
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