“Fish are like magpies when it comes to beads and bling!”
HAVE you ever caught a fish on a bare hook? Or perhaps looked on, perplexed, as a shoal of roach followed a spinner, or a carp started sucking your controller float rather than the actual bait?
Fish are curious creatures, to put it mildly. It’s part of the charm of angling that you can fully expect them to do the unexpected. Or are they just more inquisitive than we give them credit for?
I’ve had some wonderful local fishing lately, using nothing more complicated than small beaded flies. Most of the time, anglers only cast these for trout and grayling, but they can be fantastic for all manner of coarse fish. I catch lots of roach, rudd, chub and even a few carp on them each year, using little “bugs” that incorporate gold, silver or coloured beads.
Some fly fishers will tell you a shiny bead mimics the glisten of an aquatic insect. Many tiny creatures have a touch of iridescence, or trap a layer of oxygen to repel water as they dive below the surface or rise to hatch. Whatever the truth of it, fish are like magpies when it comes to beads and bling!
Of course, this statement is hardly new or revolutionary. For centuries, anglers from Europe to Japan have been fooling fish by using beads to adorn their flies, lures and traces.
It’s perhaps a habit that deserves wider currency in coarse fishing, too, because it’s no more crazy than using a fluorescent boilie or a fire tiger lure, come to that.
This month I’ve had some cracking sport on both trout streams and canals using the most basic tackle and tiny, ‘blingy’ flies. The patterns I use are extremely straightforward, such as the classic Hare’s Ear. There’s no need to go all J.R.Hartley on you here – it’s just a hook plus a metallic bead, with a pinch of animal fur to provide a nice “buggy” feel.
This fly is so easy to make, I could probably manage one blindfolded and drunk. It does a passable imitation of various critters, from freshwater shrimps to caddis nymphs. However, at no stage are the fish thinking: “Ooh, look, Gammarus
pulex, my favourite!” They see a touch of shimmer, some scruffy bits that could be legs or gills, and a simple message fires into their tiny brains... food!
In clear conditions, it’s wonderful sport to watch fish come to the fly and gobble it up. I realise I’m a bit of an oddball to do this on canals – but so be it.
You could also try freelining one on very light tackle, or even using a light float. It’s okay, I won’t tell the hoity-toity lot on the game syndicate down the road. Even if fly fishing is about as familiar to you as underwater hang-gliding, though, there’s a lesson here. All fish are curious – experiment, and use this to your advantage!