Going French!

I attended the International Fly Fair at Stafford over the weekend and picked up a few tips, and parted with a few pounds! The best purchase so far seems to be a French leader that Tyzack and the 'Fish On' team were promoting. The leader is six meters long and is made up of knotted together sections that reduce in diameter to give a gradual taper. When I finished work today I was itching to get down to the river a try it out. My local river is nothing more than a brook really but with a 7.5ft, 3 wt rod and a duo set-up with a clink and a hares ear nymph, the leader cast like a dream. I trotted the flys with a slack downstream cast. Cast one - clink went under and lifted into a fish that I bumped off. Cast two - same story. On the third cast I lifted more gently this time and I was into a fish that turned out to be this lovely brownie.

1 lb brownie taken on a 14 hares ear nymph.

I was unsure about this hand to line technique as described by the likes of Jeremy Lucas etc and wondered about the potential technical nature of this type of fishing. Despite this with such good results first time out I am definitely going to use these French leaders more especially for duo and double nymphing etc. It will be interesting to see how they perform on bigger rivers and how well I can cast them at longer distances. The turn over is very good considering that you are casting with mostly nylon leader and very little fly line.