Getalltiedup

I’M AWAY to tie some flies today, ahead of a couple of welcome November days on the water.

First port of call is a reservoir not too far away which stays open all year.

Winter rainbows can be great sport on a range of lures, many of which are simple and fun to tie.

Even if your fly doesn’t look too much like the pattern, recently-stocked fish are often ready takers because – let’s not mince words here – they don’t know any better.

That said, for winter fishing I’d favour smaller, darker-coloured lures fished deep and slow with a twitchy figure-of-eight retrieve.

On milder days, or when the sun breaks through and the air warms up, buzzers and midge emergers are a good bet as the insects they imitate are active all year.

Next on the agenda is a day on the Tweed, back to Horsburgh, where I had a nice salmon in September.

I’ll be tying up flies in black and red, in various sizes and weights to cope with whatever conditions we get.

I’m a fairly recent convert to the Red Francis, which can be tied on singles, doubles, trebles and tubes. Add in a Black Francis or three and I’ll have covered most of the bases, given the flies I’ve got in my box already.

But fellow fly tyers will know that once you sit down at your vice, you’ll often get on a roll and not want to stop.

When that happens – and it happens to me more often than not – you’re best to think back over last season and tie a heap of the flies you’ve run out of most.

For me, and many others, that’s the Kate McLaren.

In its various guises, it’s probably caught me more trout than every other fly put together.

When there’s black or brown flies on the surface – and sometimes when there isn’t – a tightly-palmered Kate McLaren will rise fish on rivers and lochs anywhere.

Tie in a few knotted feather fibres and it makes a great hopper that can be fished static, twitched across the surface or dragged through the waves as a top dropper.

On a heavy double, it makes a great point fly to pull nymphs down in the water.

And by varying the type and amount of hackle you tie in, you can produce cruncher and snatcher variations that’ll match or out-perform most other patterns.

Sea trout and salmon, when they’re in the mood, would as soon take a Kate McLaren as anything else.

So if I could only fish one fly for the rest of my life, that’s the fly I’d choose.

As long as I was allowed all the variations I’ve described here, I’d lay odds that my catch returns (have you done yours yet?) wouldn’t suffer.