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well you may be asking yourself, if he uses old reels what other tackle does he use!!
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 reels... well you probably know my opinion on reels by now , but you cannot deny that the best part of hooking a salmon on the fly is the first 30 seconds , when the salmon realises something in wrong and takes off like a bolt of lightning. to maximise on this experience its nice to have a reel with a loud check and you dont need to spend big money. i would recommend going on ebay and getting a shakespeare beaulite or a j.w. youngs condex or if you want something a bit more classy a hardy marquis 3 all of which have a good check system you cannot beat the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz .... when you hook a fish it is truly fantastic and i believe you can buy this sound as a ringtone for your mobile phone now. i would recommend an older reel to anyone but my reasons for using vintage reels go far beyond that. i really appreciate the fact that my reels were hand-made using quality materials (can you buy a reel nowadays made from ebonite wood or brass , probably not as they all seem to be made of aluminium . anyway the hand-made factor is an issue but also the fact that the reel is so old and has seen many good times . i feel it is nice to breathe new life into an old reel which is many times older than me! these reels were made by skilled metalworkers in a one-time thriving industry and constantly being improved before manufacturing went overseas ( and even our faithfull hardys have gone to korea). i particularly like the
old wooden perth style reels they are so basic but so good. the check is beautiful although with no tension adjuster but that is what you have 2 hands for. keep it simple , enjoy the fight and forget about all these over-engineered modifications. if you must use a modern reel may i suggest a pfleuger trion . it will do the business for you no problem and around the £70 mark for the 4" size should serve you well and cope with anything you may be lucky enough to hook.
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 rods... contrary to what you may think , i dont use an old greenheart rod. as far as rods are concerned , they all seem to be more or less the same but with different whippings and names on them .
some are lighter , whippier or stiffer than others but all the ones i have seen are
perfectly good (apart from the daiwa whisker) , dont get me wrong modern rods are absolutely fantastic, and
some of the older bruce and walkers are good too albeit very heavy even the modern norway rods are
great and im very tempted to buy one. fact is blanks are mass produced in the middle east now and retailers put in an order and have their details put on the rod. you might pay £600 for a big
name rod or you might pay £70 for a ron thompson.. and is it possible it is the same blank. i needed a new rod so i went to a tackle sale with £400 hoping to find something to suit, after trying a few rods (not looking at makers or prices), i found one that felt right . it was a ron thompson innovation 15ft rod priced at £69.99. so i bought it and to this day i wouldnt swap it for anything, my ron thompson rod may be frowned upon as it is a bottom end of the market rod but is it possible it was made from the same blank as a hardys or a sage £600+ rod but with a different name on it who knows i met a guy with the same model rod as mine , but when i picked it up it was a totally different blank.. explain that?? my rod has taken many good fish and casts a dream. only problem is the fuji reel fitting which i have cut down to fit my old reels with the big feet , i have to tape my reels on , if i could put it down for 5 minutes i would send it off and have sliding fittings put on it.. i also have a 16.6ft bruce + walker (the walker) a bruce and walker merlin stream king 15 ft and a sharpes gordon rod at 15ft ( prize for fish of the month), none of these rods compare to my cheap ron thompson rod. the (walker rod) is a big speycasting rod however and i use in certain conditions and the distance achieved it mindblowing.. my mate bought a
shakespeare oracle at 15 ft and its an exellent rod too it only cost £69.99. in the end its all about matching the rod to the line , and of course personal preferance
, you dont have to spend big money on rods , these shakespeare oracle kits
you get on ebay at £99 for the rod , reel spare spool , lines and flies etc are fantastic ....... the big
walker rod came tumbling down on my head the other day whilst in a forward cast
, it went at the lower mid section god knows why , and at £166 for a new section
from B+W looks like its back to the ron
thompson rod
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 lines.. this used to be one of my biggest problems.. i see so many anglers spending big money on mach II , rio speycasters etc £50-£80..interchangeable tips etc and lots of other gimmicks!! as i am mainly an overhead caster i always
use john norris lines double taper 35 yards in size 10 for my ron thompson rod.. i can cast anyway i want with these lines ,
they are cheap and work for me , i tried a size 11 with the (walker 16.6) and the distance achieved was mindblowing with minimal effort. dont get me wrong mach IIs , shoting heads etc are good , i have seen other anglers cast unbelievable distances with shooting heads and mach II,s its truly stunning & they put me to shame!! but these lines appear to be no good if u want to fish close in
or overhead cast and i dont like the feel of the thin line when stripping in , but thats just me.
also i quite often stand on my line with the studded waders and damage the line
, id be pretty pissed off if i had done this to a £125 interchangeable tip
system , i am gonna pick up a few more of these norris lines at £8 each they do
me and sandy just fine .. , its all about how you work it
and what your own personal preferance is..
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 flies.. i believe it doesnt
really matter what pattern u use , most flies will catch salmon ... the only thing that matters in my opinion is
the size , depth and speed at which its fished at and of course good presentation (i would not apply this theory to trout fishing though as these are feeding fish and its a totally different form of fishing). have you ever wondered why people say "oh the ally shrimp is a good fly" or why everyone likes "cascades" . everyone uses them thats
why they catch fish both lovely flies but purely because of the fact they are so bright with vivid translucent colours
, they were designed by alistair gowans whilst on a trip out on loch linnhe he
seen some little shrimp type creatures and copied what he saw . if everyone were to start using orange fritz,s they would still catch fish , dont get me wrong i use ally shrimp type and cascade type flies all the time and they catch fish there is no doubt. but look at what they used to use for christs sake , big hefty flies beautifully tied but too fussy for my liking and they caught fish back then i mean have you ever seen a "collie dog" its the ugliest fly you will ever see but fished correctly it will work.
i believe any fly presented properly in the appropriate conditions will antagonise a fish enough to take , providing the fish is in the mood , my opinion is make them easy to see (lots of bling) fish them fast and deep and hope for the best. you may say to me that you have gone through a pool with no success, changed your fly go through it again and get a fish . well how do you know the fish was in the pool the first time you went through it would be my response , my second response would be
did you try a smaller fly , of course sometimes the fish just "come on" due to
changes in weather and time of day etc. i am a great believer in fishing for 1 fish , as i believe there is safety in numbers
, and if you have a large number of fish lying in a pool a lot of the time they simply wont take. if you can imagine 1 fish sitting on its own minding its own business then a big fly goes past its nose .. its
usually gonna have it.. then imagine a pile of fish sitting in a group , if anything goes past
them it seems to me that they will not often break away from the group , although the odd cocky young grilse sometimes will. i make my own flies and i keep making them bigger and brighter and it seems to work. i would imagine if a fish was on the bottom looking up at the fly with the sun in the background , any fly would appear black to them because the light is not on the underside, so they merely see the sillhouette of the fly , thats why i fish my flies right down deep and try and put it right in front of the fish. Two major lens modifications affect the fish's vision profoundly-its lens is round, and it is much denser than a human lens. A fish lens can, therefore, focus heavily-refracted light onto its retina, so it clearly sees objects underwater. To vary its focus, the fish moves its lens forward and backward. A freshwater fish is naturally farsighted, so when it wants to focus on close objects, it moves its lens back from the cornea and closeup focus is achieved. Fish enjoy a tremendous field of view, with 180 degrees of overlapping vision from both eyes. With their swimming motion and eye movements, fish generally don't have blind spots behind them and have good depth perception.Fish don't need eyelids to keep their eyes moist, thus many fishers believe that fish cannot control the amount of light entering their eyes. They believe fish hide in low light areas to escape bright light. this simply isnt true. The fish eye controls light in a different way than a human eye. , instead of an iris closing, or eyelids squinting, "The fish uses synchronized movement of the rods, cones, and pigment granules in the pigmented portion of the retina to control light entering the eye." While a fish can handle great variations in ambient light, one drawback to this method is that adjusting from low light to bright light may take a fish much longer than it takes us. One of the best indicators that some fish see color is that they have cones, which are the color receptors in higher vertebrates. Another indicator is that many fish are highly colored, and the most colourful fishes are found in shallow, well-lighted waters, where they are exposed to the full color spectrum. Based on testing, the primary biological advantage of color vision for a fish is being able to contrast food targets against a variety of backgrounds. As a fly fisher, you should know that colour can really impact a fly's effectiveness at times. i seen a guy down the river the other day fishing with a pot-bellied-pig , with an un-necessarily long tail on it. "got lots of fish on these paul", he said . i looked at the length of the tail and i said " aye but how many have you missed", it was a lovely bright fly but although long tails are very attractive i would be concerned about the fish missing the hook a lot of the time if they just come up and lick the fly and in , most cases you only get 1 chance.
i have recently been introduced to these sun-ray shadows , bloody hell they are
just spinners but made of feathers , the one i seen was called a "tsunami" it
was a foot long , im sure it will take fish in the right conditions though
, i would imagine they are quite expensive because i make flies and i can see
that a lot of work goes into making these what withe different feathers and
muddler heads etc, maybe it would be easier to just tie the whole bird on
and use that cos its about the same size, perhaps one day i will use one
but i would be pretty pissed off if i whipped it off in a tree. 20 years ago you would
have been laughed off the river if you turned up with one of these on. if you are spinning you would normally use 1
spinner in particular , be it a mepp or a devon or in my case a toby , changing
sizes due to water conditions , why therefore doesnt this approach be used in
fly fishing , i dont see why tiny little changes in colours , ribbing , hackles
, tails etc etc should make any difference. in the words of allan sefton ,
in an article i read recently in trout + salmon magazine "i wouldnt care if i
could only ever use 1 type of fly , just let me choose different sizes".
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 casting... i must admit i do like my long distance casting , its hard work but i believe the more distance you put between yourself and the fish the better. i have heard the old arguement that if you cast too far you may miss fish that are lying close in , i dont agree with this. if you start up the pool as far as you can and gradually increase your cast and fish the fly right into the side you
should cover the whole pool.i have had so many fish whilst retrieving the line and im sure in a lot of cases the fish has followed the fly from somewhere else in the pool and only taken once you start tweeking the line in , i have even hooked fish whilst walking out of a pool with the line still in the water. i do like my overhead casting , this enables me to put the fly down exactly where i want it with minimum fuss
, even under overhanging trees if you side-swipe it , also you do get a chance to retrieve a good bit of line in and hopefully tempt a fish to take at the last minute. i understand that a lot of the time you have to speycast , i like doing this too but you dont get the same accuracy especially in a light wind and you really have to have your line matched to your rod perfectly and your timing absolutely spot on.. 1 lift
turn the line and a good punt out with your hand high up on the rod to load the line should be enough with both overhead and spey casting.
sometimes i have to do a combination which is a spey , to get the line in front
of me then an overhead cast to get better distance and aim , if there is one thing that i would rather not do it is having to double spey , im lucky i dont have to do it often but when i do and when i watch other people it is such a hassle with a lot of disturbance in the water. for the double spey you really have to have everything finely tuned and have a good mach II or shooting head i simply cant be bothered with the hassle . the roll cast is not one that i use very often
either because i can usually get away with using the single spey. dont get me wrong i am definately not the most elegant person to watch but i try to keep the fly in the water 99% of the time and not in the air or in the trees and in certain pools i mend the line 1-2 times just to keep it coming round nicely and like to dangle it for a while. all these techniques take an awful lot of time & patience to perfect and you will very rarely get true perfection because of weather conditions , trees and water levels so you have to acquaint yourself with all different forms of casting if you want to achieve the best results
and fish through difficult pools. my sympathies go out to the fishermen who are
new to fly fishing as its so hard to get the casting right and getting
that first take is seemingly a never -ending task and it doesnt help when
everyone around you is catching fish.-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 connections .. this seems a
problem that has such over engineered solutions . whatever happened to using a knot... lets start at the drum.. make sure you have more than enough backing to land a whale!! attach to the drum with whatever knot you like because if it gets that far its game over anyway , then from the backing to the fly line .. strip the fly line to the braid and a simple bloodknot
is adequate and small enough to slip through the eyes, then from the end of the flyline to the mono i use a double blood-loop on the stripped fly-line braid
and attach it with to the mono with a double blood loop looped through , with the fly tied on with a half blood knot
(tucked half blood knot for waddington flies)
as they are made of thicker wire
. i only ever use maxima 12lb chameleon for my leaders because any heavier
can create an un-natural drag on the fly sometimes and its almost invisible in any colour of water , also it lasts for ages and i have never had a fish break me on this
, dont leave out in the sun though as it perishes . i have heard heartbreaking stories of lost fish due to these
braided loops , and i have seen it happen , this guy lost the fish & his
whole new flyline the moment the loop hit the top eye , i will never ever use them , i dont see the point. i have never had a fish "break me" , unless it was around a boulder or
sunken tree , so i reckon my way is pretty foolproof.. i will never use braided loops as i
simply dont trust them.. keep it simple , is my opinion but other people i talk to swear by them so i guess its personal preferance!!
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 landing gear... if im spinning its usually whilst the river is in a big spate so i usually carry a big net but if im fly fishing its usually in moderate water so i try to be as minimalistic as possible and beach the fish if i can but if im a pool where its not possible, i use a kevlar filleting glove to tail the fish. once you have the wrist of the tail in your grasp the fish isnt
getting away. the grip you get with these gloves is brilliant.
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 waders.... bloody waders , i spend a fortune on waders, boots , studs etc every year. i would like to find a pair of thigh waders with a full felt sole, if anyone can help please let me know. mostly i use the chest waders, and i can go through 2 pairs in a season. i must have felt soles with lots of studs , so i used to use neoprene bootfoot ones but every pair i had leaked eventually and they were pretty warm and heavy so i moved to wychwood stocking foot ones. these are the best i have had because they are very light and totally leakproof , the only downside is that it takes a lot longer putting them on and taking them off. im finding the wading boots are a bit of a problem too as they dont seem to last very long before the felt soles start to come loose, but im sure i will find a good pair eventually.
thank god for aquasure , why dont they just make waders out of that..
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 lost fish.... we have all lost fish and there is nothing you could have done. i lost a lovely springer yesterday 12/5/08. i would estimate it at 20lbs+ i had it on for
nearly an hour but in low tide and fast heavy water & on my own i was stuck and couldnt do anything other than try to force it in , it came off as i got my hand to it with the rod right up in the air !! these things happen. but im counting it as the fish was played out and i got my hand on it.
i also lost a huge fish at the end of the 2007 season , i had it on for an hour
and i never got it to the surface once , it eventually went round a rock and got
me stuck. its heartbreaking when you lose a fish , i personally dont mind so
much as long as i get a look at it. sometimes there is nothing you can do , i
remember losing 7 in one day , all were hooked but simply came off. i beat that
recently with 23 visible takes , out of that 2 were landed 4 or 5 were on and off and
the rest were just swipes at the spinner and i seen every one of them too , i
guess it was the same fish a couple of times but you are never gonna land
everything you hook , i went to the same place the next day and never seen a
single fish!! i guess this is one of the things that keep us coming back for more..
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 last words.... i would like to finish by saying that everyone has their own techniques , preferances and views etc and everyone is entitled to an opinion
, what will work in one river wont work in another . that why fishing is so addictive because in the end nobody really knows what works best. one thing you have to accept is that luck plays a major part and no matter how good you are there will always be someone better or luckier on the day. but a little knowledge and a lot of perserverance will increase your chances
, take advice and study other fishermen , watch every move they make because
they may be doing something you arent , i believe this is where beginners
luck comes in because they are not totally orthodox and may do something that is
the vital element in inducing a take . i shed a lot of tears when i was young trying to tie knots , flies and learning to cast. now im older im no better , i have thrown the rod down in frustration, shouted at the river and said to myself "thats it im packing it in"
or even deliberatley try to hook the bottom , just for the "bump" when things werent going well, but i still go back for more and to be honest i hope i always will...
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