Take a leaf out of Dai’s book

Apr 29 2008 by Moc Morgan, Western Mail

ONE always derives a certain amount of pleasure after succeeding in doing something in the correct way. The old adage “practice makes master” is often quoted and doing something in the right way does bring its benefits.

In angling one of most important things to get right is the presentation of whatever you have to offer to entice the fish. Whatever it is, it must be presented in as natural and correct a manner as possible. It could be a fly or a spinner – but either must be cast to the immediate vicinity of the fish without disturbing and scaring the fish. In short, getting it on to the water in a manner similar to that of a natural fly.

If the presentation is awkward it will frighten the fish and it will immediately stop feeding as the instinct of self-preservation takes over.

I recall the time when as young lads in the village of Pontrhydfendigaid we would spend hours gazing into the Teifi from the famous old bridge that spans the river dividing the village into two. From there we had a grandstand view of the river below and its inhabitants. We used to play a game of spotting and counting the trout we could see. In those days the count would easily be up to a dozen trout. The trout were numerous and plentiful back then. I repeated the exercise a few days ago and the count was a mere two trout. Sad!

It could have been my ageing eyesight but somehow I don’t think so.

As youngsters we would try to fool the trout by cutting matchsticks picked up from the road into half-inch bits, dropping them into the water below and ensuring they floated over the trout. If successful the trout would swim up and take one of the bits into its mouth before spitting it out.

This made us realise how important it is for the fly that we present to float like the matchstick over the fish in a natural manner and not be dragged in any way. From our bird’s eye view of the behaviour of the fish and of our previous failed attempts with our flies we learnt that we needed to practise getting the fly to float naturally over the fish.

Anglers’ flies of course are tied to a fishing line and therefore have a tendency to float unnaturally because of the drag on the line. We could witness this drag from the bridge but it was not always apparent from the bank side. The fly therefore has to be cast in such a manner that the line is not too straight and not too slack but lands the fly just in front of the fish without showing too much of the nylon fastened to it.

This might not seem very demanding but with a crosswind or headwind it becomes quite a difficult task. This is where the practice makes master.

Another requirement when casting is that the fly is cast accurately and this demands the arm joints and muscles to be correctly aligned. One must always keep in mind that if the shoulder, elbow or wrist moves out of line, accuracy suffers. A mere tenth of an inch movement at the elbow results in the tip of the rod moving at least a foot.

One of the great teachers of casting was Charles Ritz, the great hotelier. He introduced a casting scheme of HS/HL (high speed/high line). He was a quite a cast master, accuracy personified, and the high line towards the back prevented it from catching any trees, and bank growth lurking behind.

The late Dai Lewis, Tregaron, was an angler who was out fishing every day and his control of the rod and line was nigh perfect. He tended to use just one rod for all kinds of fishing and naturally he knew that rod well. He believed in what is considered today as an old-fashioned coaching ploy of putting a book between his elbow and his body while casting. If the book fell it meant that the casting action was inaccurate – the elbow was moving instead of holding everything in a straight line. This approach despite being old-fashioned is still a good starting point for novice casters today.

Good casting like a good swing in golf, depends on the timing and all good performers whatever the game make everything look easy.

I recall when I was in my teens one of the old wags in Tregaron telling me that Dai Lewis was so good at casting that he could stand on the steps of the Talbot Hotel, spit some six yards in front of him and cast a fly into the spit. Scarcely believe!

But when he expanded on that by saying that Dai would take a pound trout from the spit, I realised someone was pulling my leg and cocky as ever replied: “No, no – never a pound trout, half a pound maybe but never a pound!”