Bank Holiday Fishing? Plan Ahead, Essentials Check List!

19 May 2022 | Sarah

For those who fly fish, the weekends mean one thing... the serious business of wafting carbon around and if it happens to be a Bank Holiday then this translate as an extra day’s fishing.

Make sure you have all your gear well in advance of your trip!

Yet, before venturing out it’s as well to make sure all our tackle is in order, especially if you only happen to fish once a month.

After all the last thing we want is turning up to find trout rising everywhere, only to discover we’ve run out of fly floatant, or worse still, tippet material.

Before we get to the nitty-gritty of those peripheral items, it’s probably wise to check your spools of monofilament:

make sure they have adequate reserves
material hasn’t weakened over time

This is easily done by pulling off a short length of approx 2ft and giving it a tug on either end.

If it breaks readily then we suggest replacing this immediately.

One thing here, fluorocarbon is less prone to deterioration than other types of tippet materials. We suggest one of the following:

A good pair of snips are essential when constructing leaders, or cutting away tag ends after knotting on a fly.

When it comes to consumables, one of the most important items is a decent floatant, especially at this time of year, when hatches are arguably at their best.

For treating new, or unused flies some sort of gel is recommended with Gherkes Gink being extremely popular.

For flies wetted, or slimed by fish these should be revamped using one of the powder types of dressings, especially when CdC flies are the order of the days

It’s worth carry some form of sinkant too. This doesn’t only help your tippet section submerge when dry fly fishing so it doesn’t leave a telltale imprint at the surface, but is handy for getting your wet flies to sink more readily. So a tube of this really is invaluable.

Zingers come in handy for housing all those important little items like snips, forceps, floatant etc.

A decent pair of forceps not only help to crush down bards when practicing catch and release they’re extremely useful for removing your fly when trout are deeply hooked: We prefer the ones with serrated jaws.

Hook hones, or sharpeners are easily overlooked these days, yet they’re an extremely important piece of kit, especially when fishing close to dam walls, or other stonework that if glanced by our fly/hook on your backcast can dull the point of even the sharpest of hooks. This simple piece of kit renders blunt hooks as sharp as a needle in a stroke, or two:

Love ‘em, or hate ‘em, strike indicators are a godsend for those new to stillwaters, or when nymphing at range.

Whilst the yarn type indicators land with little fuss they aren’t the most aerodynamic, so tend to fall short where distance is required.

However, up to 20 yards of so they’re extremely effective.

We suspect many of you carry too many flies, and that includes us here at TEF too, some of our staff are the worst culprits for lugging around boxes upon boxes of nymphs, dries, wets and lures.

Naturally, once you’re decked yourself out with countless fly boxes, you’re going to have to stow them away in some sort of tackle bag

For those who prefer traveling light and remaining more mobile, all the items you’ll need can be stored in either a fly fishing vest, or chest pack/backpack combo

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