Foreward By Lindsay Simpson; I read this article in the Bewl Angle the club magazine for BBFFC and got permission from the editor Ray French to reproduce it on this site. The article is written by one of the characters at Bewl, Simon Newman. He is an exellent angler and fishes with the Weald of Kent competition team. An extremely humorous man who delights in the pursuit of sea fishing (and swimming if memory serves me right). The article is so funny because it is very true.........
By Simon Newman
I made a mistake yesterday. I looked in my tackle box for the first time since October and my last trip of the season to Bewl. A pretty sight would be about as big a lie as someone calling me slim. My end of year murmuring's of losing weight in the new year is but a distant memory, a fading dream of an adonis like figure which in reality will only be achieved by a protracted dose of flu and a family of intestinal parasites. I meant the Chinese new year anyway!.
Tackle box, back to the point. I have a little case which holds all my fly lines on spare spools. I counted them. Seventeen different fly lines!. Three different floating lines, two clear intermediates and ten sinking lines that sink at such marginally different speeds I've got to wonder if I've been hypnotised by the hold music on the airflo hotline. I haven't even spooled up my new Rio midgetip which every other competition angler was using for the whole of last year . I'm sure my old floater which sinks tip first with just the weight of a fluorocarbon leader achieves the same effect. Still, what's forty nine pounds between friends?!. I bought the neutral density intermediate all the comp boys were using last season as well. They were using it to catch fish just sub surface to great effect as it stops sinking with even the slowest retrieve. Another forty pounds spent only to discover it has exactly the same action as the orvis tan intermediate that I've used and loved for years. Still, had to have it just in case, so it sits in my reel case looking pretty and very pristine.
I bought a new rod last year as well. A Sage 10ft 6in RPL something for a six weight line at the Bewl auction. My usual rod is 9ft 6in and I reasoned the extra length would enable me to fish with slightly longer leaders and have a greater distance between my top dropper and point fly, especially useful now we can use four flys at Bewl. Good logical thinking, or so you would have thought. First time in use, with a good 14 feet between top dropper and point (I could just about manage 12 ft with my old rod) I hooked a fish on the point fly. After playing the fish to the boat and with the top fly firmly lodged in my top ring the fish was still a good four feet out of range of the landing net. Longer rod, softer action.....doh!. Another one hundred pounds well spent (not!).
So, I've cleaned all my fly lines, washing the sinkers in warm soapy water and wiped the floaters with the little pad of stuff you get when you buy a line from Cortland . I've even put them in some sort of order. Floaters then neutral then clear ones , one inch per second, two inched per second down to eight inches per sec. I'm still left with three grey lines that I haven't got a clue about. I think one may be a belly first hi-D. Either way I know I haven't used them for at least three years. Another one hundred pounds of value for money!. Fly lines sorted I turned my attention to my drogue. Nicely scrunched up in a plastic bag it was still wet from October!. A wichwood para drogue newly acquired last season after a particularly bad day on Bewl. I'd joined Ade Necci for an evening session. Ade had been out since lunchtime and only needed one more for his limit when I joined him at tea time. "It's fishing really well" he told me as he picked me up from the jetty. Sure enough, ten minutes later Ade had his last fish in the boat and after chatting and watching me fish for half an hour I dropped him of and continued fishing. Setting up for the drift I attached my drogue and began casting away. Drifting a bit quick I thought, so I turned round to check the drogue. Four feet of rope, a link swivel and no drogue!. The link had managed to open, but I will take some consolation that it is probably ideal habitat for caddis and I have in a small way contributed to the fly life at Bewl enriching the environment for us all.(much in the same way as the artificial reef of diet coke bottles I've created in the corner of pine bay!?).
So, thirty odd pounds and a new drogue later I then proceeded to achieve my first blank at Bewl since I discovered my fly box was the only casualty of the millennium bug in early 2000. (sounded viable at the time anyway!). Forlorn and dejected, I set off on the long lonely drive back to sarf east London only to be met by the longest queue of stationary traffic in the history of traffic that's stationery. I'd blanked, lost my drogue and set a new record for going nowhere for FIVE HOURS on a thursday night. Still, didn't grumble, but did consider digging up the carcass of the cat from beneath the bird bath so I could give it a good kicking. Anyway, next day and the proud owner of my new drogue, I decided I'd look after this one properly and set it up with a swivel D ring on the main rope and clip swivels on the four corner ropes thus avoiding loosing the drogue if one swivel failed.(I use this set up as it makes untangling a doddle). Off to the chandler I went and after picking up the pieces I wanted, I went to pay. Thirty six pounds!!!!!. I was too shocked to think quickly and simply handed over the money not wanting to embarrass myself by asking for cheaper ones. I must have the only drogue on Bewl that cost about seventy quid and gets admiring glances from passing sailors. (No the drogue, not me!) So, fly lines sorted and drogue neatly folded I turned my attention to my fly boxes. I think most normal people will have ma-by two or three fly boxes. Seven!. Lure box, booby box, dry's, nymphs, buzzer's, competition box and another box that simply growls whenever my hand goes anywhere near it!. (It's got minkies in it and I think they've bred). Out of interest I did a rough estimate of the number of flies. Somewhere in the region of twelve hundred!. I then counted the flies I'd actually caught fish on last year. About twenty five. I've now got eight fly boxes. The previous seven and a new one for the flies I caught on last year so they're always close to hand.
About three years ago I took out all the flies I didn't use and transferred them to a huge master box that lives at home. I had a month or so to spare so thought I'd repeat the process. I sorted them into various categories. Crap that looks crap and has never worked, crap that caught a fish once and crap that's never worked but looks good. Going through the master box (which never really got opened last season) I put in about five hundred flies but took out about six hundred that looked way too good not to be available for day to day selection. So, I now have nine fly boxes and am about to buy a bigger tackle box so I can take my master home reserve box with me just in case!!!.
I'm really looking forward to the new season. Long straight slow drifts courtesy of my new drogue, deftly flicking out my flies with my 10ft 6in sage with the line that sinks at 2.1245" per second attached to a leader of 6lb .006172" diameter riverge... ariccifullingflueromirragemagicmustcatchmorefishlookintomyeyesnotaroundmyeyesmustbuymoreflylines.. with four of the best looking flies the fish have ever never seen before. Therefore, in summary and to round things off, tight lines and don't forget to tidy your tackle box before the season starts. I look forward to seeing you all in the priory at the start of the season.