Fly Fishing: Better to be Lucky

We owe a huge part of angling success to luck. No matter how highly we rate our angling ability, fickle fortune always has a say in the outcome.

There are many factors which combine to bring a fish to a fly and while skill and experience will usually make for a positive outcome, there is no doubt that a considerable slice of luck can be very welcome. Let’s be honest.

We’ve all been lucky at times haven’t we. Quite why some anglers seem luckier than others is a puzzle but on balance I think we all get a run of luck from time to time, although there’s a lot to be said for golfer Lee Trevino’s famous saying that ‘the more he plays, the luckier he gets’.

There’s a lot of truth in his insight and it would certainly explain why the top anglers are just so consistent. Obvious really isn’t it. Throughout a long fishing life I have seen more than a few instances when unbelievable luck has played its part.

I’ve had my own share, indeed; successes that I initially put down to my talent but which, on reflection, were just plain lucky. How else do you explain a period some 40 years ago when I used to fish a very coloured water, where it was impossible to be sight selective and yet for six consecutive visits I had a trout of over six pounds in my limit of four, when the average was just a pound and a half and there was no catch-and-release and certainly no ‘sorting’ of the catch?

Definitely luck I’d say. It’s easy to believe that I had ‘better’ flies or fished more intelligently, but the truth was that I was simply lucky. As I was on another occasion when I fished a well-known big-fish water at the time of an algal bloom so thick that fishing was slow, to say the least. Combine that with a bad headache and I was thinking, “one fish and I’m going home”.

Even clients without a clue have caught 

So what should happen but a few speculative casts into the green gloom and my line tightening to a 19-pounder? Now that was definitely luck! But it was very welcome nevertheless and made me feel invincible.

My life entails a lot of corporate days and guiding, which can be quite trying when a result is important for the satisfaction of the client, and that’s when I find myself almost praying for luck.

One such day, on a small water, involved a customer who really didn’t want to learn flyfishing and just thrashed the rod to and fro with a great heap of line on the water.

I worried that success wasn’t going to happen and imagined any selfrespecting trout would give us a very wide berth. It didn’t matter what I did to try and help and I was left staring into the frothy lake in desperation when suddenly a big rainbow cruised up from the lakebed, straight into the tangle of line, found the fly and swam off with it.

Somehow it hung on and kept going until all the loose line tightened up and the reluctant angler was playing his first-ever fish. I just couldn’t believe it but of course I’d like to think it was down to my useful advice!

Again...it was pure luck. And it’s surprising how quickly boredom can give way to bragging...

Where’s luck when you really want it? 

I reckon that without the occasional slice of luck, though, fishing wouldn’t be anything like as interesting as it is and I am sure you too can think of many catches which owe a little more to luck than skill.

Why not write to us with your ‘lucky’ catch stories – I’m sure they’d be very interesting and entertaining to say the least. Most of my friends only ever get lucky, at least that’s what I say, but maybe that’s why I don’t have so many friends!

The truth is that good friends can take some gentle ribbing: even that great photographer Peter Gathercole has to take some stick from me when he miraculously hooks up, but then he does tend to give it back in equal measure…

I could have done with a little luck this spring when my annual bash at the Tweed’s salmon took place. During my week the river went up to seven feet and the one fishable day never even gave me a tweak to the fly.

The following week, of course, when I was no longer there, saw an absolute bonanza. Such is fishing and at least it’s just the one year before I get to try again for this incredible fish.

So slender a window of opportunity reminds me of the time in my life when I was heavily into rearing ornamental pheasants and had a real passion for the Palawan Peacock (pictured).

It was such a hard bird to rear, not helped by the fact that a pair only lay two eggs a year, a tally reduced by half should a female choose to lay one of them while sitting high on her perch… And yes, that has happened I can tell you!

Feather fascination is an addiction 

I had around 15 species of pheasant at one time and it was a darn good job my neighbour was a retired gamekeeper as the noise during spring was a little wearing.

I’m not sure why I got into the pheasants but it was an offshoot of a time when I was tying classic salmon flies and became really interested in the plumage. I didn’t rear the birds to crop the feathers, other than jungle cock, but nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of those years.

Friends who were fly-dressers loved to come and look at the birds and the feather thing is just another facet of flyfishing, which can also become addictive. That side of life all ended when I had to move after finally giving up running the fishery which had provided my tied cottage, in its delightful setting.

Things are a bit different now but one thing’s for sure: I will always be a flyfisher, lucky or otherwise.

Peter Cockwill: Tackle shop owner, fishery manager, guide and Hunting-Tips.Net contributor of 3 years.