…but sometimes you get what you need.

No doubt most fisherman dream of chasing big fish, in wild waters that are in  far flung exotic locations. We want to explore unfished rivers high, wild and hidden, we want to drift down deep jungle waters teeming with life, and we want to walk endless  exotic flats and beaches that hold giant hungry and uneducated creatures who have never seen a fly.

The reality for most of us though, is that even if you are one of those lucky souls who gets to do a trip, or a few trips to places that inhabit your dreams, the likelihood is that the bulk of your fishing can, and should happen on your doorstep.. Sure the fish might not be huge, they might not be exotic and the locations may be far from beautiful and untouched. But the essence of tricking a fish into eating a fly remains the same.

Sometimes just an adjustment on your tackle, scaling down if needed, to match your quarry is all thats needed to ignite that same fire that.

An amazing spell of windless weather recently, combined with a quiet spell at work meant I’ve had  a little more time off to get back into chasing local ditch dwellers. And while these may not be the giants of my dreams, their finicky nature, extreme pickiness on flies, and chasing them on scaled down tackle, like 5x and 6x tippet, matched to ultralight rods bring back all the heart rate ramp ups, the shaking fingers when changing flies, the despair at a last second refusal from a committed fish, and the stoke when it does all come together… and there is something to be said for being able to find and experience all those emotions, on your doorstep, regularly.