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The Wels Catfish Pilgrimage

The Wels Catfish Pilgrimage

Wels cats on fly has become a pilgrimage to Norfolk for several of us insane cat hunters and this trip was our second this year (5th Anglia trip over last 3 yrs). Would Oliver’s record be bested? Would any of the float tubers break the newly created record? Would any new records be set?
Part of our endeavour to see if there is a “best time of year” to consistently hook and land cats on the fly. One (or a few) theory was to target when Cats feed up before they hunker down for winter, hence the time of year this trip was booked. If anyone has missed it, I’ll repeat: Wels cats on fly is STILL in its infancy, we are still trying to work out what or how they want that fly, at times can be very frustrating and there has been plenty of swearing!

12#’s to the ready!

Day one – Wednesday
Midday onwards we get the bivvys and truck tent up. Something as a fly only method angler that I am, I have had to adapt a little to the “Bivvy” camping side of angling that cat fishing needs. We knew we needed to get set up as on the horizon were dark rain filled clouds that were heading our way, around 5pm the heavens opened, and it royally pissed it down! Couple of us were caught out and dove into our trucks to ride out the heavy rain. Thankfully it didn’t last long, and we were back out fishing again. Some out on tubes with a couple of us casting from the banks, the venue is 80% fly fishable with only really one area that’s not suitable for a back cast and that area is covered by the float tube or boat.
Dusk fell, spirits were high with hope of a decent cat into our nets that night. Night time fly casting takes fly fishing on to a whole new level, you need to feel your rod loading, listen to the line/fly to know when to shoot and I know it has made me a far better caster as I am more tuned to my cast. It is always best to start your casting in an area before dusk, so you get to know what’s around you before it does get dark. We do not use our head torches until we get a fish on or need to tie knots.

Truck tent makes things easier

It was around 7.30pm, the waxing moon was up with the moonlight helping with moving around peg to peg. I decided to clip on my 6” long Moggie Hunter Magenta Nayat with Alpaca/flash head bulkhead fly I had tied for the trip. I kept the wind on my left shoulder making it a bit easier or rather safer to cast. I was keeping my retrieve slow as something Stuart said earlier stuck in my mind that we might be retrieving too fast for the cats.
I was fishing in a 3-meter gap between 2 large bushes and 3-4 casts in this spot. I had around half my line retrieved in when things went solid. I did 2 sharp strips keeping the rod tip aimed at the water and held/paused…………
I felt 2 head shakes through the line before it decided to run, it took some fly line through my hand as I hand retrieve my line. I locked the fly line with my left hand in to the cork which acts as a brake while I can spool the slack line on the floor back on to the spool. We do fight cats off the reel and bet get the fish on the reel asap. It decided it wanted to take off to my right, with the bush in the way I didn’t want that to happen, so I lent the rod over opposite to steer it off its run. It decided to turn and run left; rod goes over to the right to steer it out of that run.
By now Dave was beside me with net waiting, and the fish was not taking any more line. I used the brute force of the 12# Predator rod to lift the fish off the bottom, brought it closer to the bank and walked backwards for Dave to net it. Relief when I saw it was completely in the net as Cats can reverse back out a net given the chance!
Dean was on his float tube and had joined us to start resting the cat in the net while Dave and I set to getting the unhooking/weighing gear ready. This moggie had inhaled the fly, once unhooked the fly was just a ball of slimy mess! We rested the cat again ready for photos and its weigh in.
The moggie fly weighed in at 21lbs 10oz, this is officially my biggest UK fish I have landed as my PB Pike is also a 21lbs fish. Dean mentioned that it had not taken long to land it, it took less than 4 minuets. A little longer than my PB wild fenland Pike I landed on my 10# 3 winters previous which was in the net well under 2 mins and the Wels certainly put up a better fight than the Pike had. But on a 12# fly rod, that cat had no chance to get far.
Only after the cat had safely swam off do I really take in that I have had my 1st ever Wels cat, on a fly rod, my own fly and a fly line I had made for this very job! Did I celebrate? I just carried on fishing with a quiet proudness and waited for the next fish.

An hour later Dave wandered by moving to his next peg, he had hooked into a nice fish but had managed to get off only to lose his fly in the reeds casting back to the lost fish.
Both Dean and Stuart had a fright in the dark from a couple of big cats that got curious to their tubes 😳. When we do these sessions, we do also put a couple of bait rods out while no one is fly fishing. Around 2am Dean had a run on his bait rod that resulted in the 2nd Cat of the session and weighed in at 32lbs.

Deans 32lbs bait caught cat
Norfolk sunrise, stunning as usual

Following day chatting to the guys in the group that it came apparent that I am the first woman to get one on fly in the UK, all records start somewhere, and it can only get better from here!
Midday rolled round, enjoying the bit of sunshine when the local Environment Agency bailiff rocked up to check people’s licences. I am told this is a rare thing and one of the guys in the group hadn’t had his licence checked for almost 40 years! For me this was my second check in 4 years from when I got my first licence. The rest of the daytime remained quiet on the fish front, early evening Alex was on the float tube and hooked into a cat, after a brief fight it too got off with Alex swearing (as most of us do when we lose a fish!) or was it Dave’s lost float tube flipper he had hooked? 🤔….. Although whatever it was did fight back so Dave’s flipper is committed to the depths and a few of us would love to see the face of the poor sod who hooks/lands that into their net! WTF… 🤣
The rest of the night was quiet despite 2-3 of the tubers out to the weeee hours of the morning.

Alex float tubing in to the night
When things start getting hard & you resort to….

We had been invited to test out the new lake at the fishery to see if it was castable (fly fishing), The last of the landscaping took place several weeks ago. Stock wise there are cats up to 50lbs as well as Pike, as the lakes at this venue all have a water clarity that’s only 12” at best. You have no idea what you have hooked in to on the new lake until it surfaces, potluck surprise?
We all took turns spending a few hours on the lake, most of us had a take or knock. But none of us saw anything to the net. 90% castable lake which holds a lot of potential, I have already booked a shorter session on the lake for next May. The plan is to use it to introduce newcomers to catfish without needing the 12# set ups as it stocks smaller cats than the main lake we fish. Watch this space for the May dates/info.
Late afternoon Oliver hooked into a kitten that had eyes bigger than its tummy! 😸 But this was Ollies first cat on float tube, all PBs start somewhere and get better from there. As the evening drew in, more rain was forecast, and consensus was that no more fish would be showing. True to that, only action was the odd cat bumping into a float tube scaring the shite out of the tuber!

The Wels Catfish Pilgrimage
Olivers 1st cat on float tube

Last morning of the pilgrimage was a little down beat, most of us had started to pack up as soon as the sun had dried off the night dew. We did carry on fly fishing up to about 10am when we called it a day, Stuart had an 890 odd mile trip back home to Scotland!
Stood in the carpark mulling over the last few days, could we have done things differently? What we had changed this trip, did it work? What we do know so far:
-Fly colour does not matter; Cats have poor eyesight. But they do have excellent sense to pick up movement.
-Fly type: Bulkheads, baitfish patterns with and without tails have seen cats to the net.
-Catfish are bastards! Just two days after the end of our trip, the fishery posted reports of 80+lbs cats out with a further 96lbs cat out a day later!
We know that fly fishing for catfish is not easy, if we wanted easy; we’d all just lob in worm bombs or smelly baits! But that is not what this is about, however long it takes; we will eventually start seeing a trend emerge that we can use to home in onto catch MORE Wels Cats on fly rod.


Gear used on the trip
I know a couple of people think that what we use is over kill and it probably is for the small fish waters they fish! But the 5 acre venue we fish has cats up to 120Lbs with 20 off over the 80lbs mark and 100s more under that. We simply do not mess around with light gear at this venue, nor will the venue owner allow light gear to be used on this lake.
-Dave: Hardy Zane #12 fly rod, Orvis Mirage VII deep fly reel, WF12F Rio Outbound Short Fly Line, 60/80lb Fluorocarbon.
-Andy: 12wt bloke rod with Reddington Behemoth 11/12 wt
-Alex: 12# Hardy Zane rod, Zane carbon reel and a 12# Epic boca grande rod, Tibor Gulfstream reel with Cortland Compact Float & Int

bocca

Stuart: 12# Epic boca Grande, 11/12 Behemoth reel, Cortland compact floating and intermediate, 60lb fluorocarbon.

Oliver: 12# vision SWS Venus fly rod , Hardy CADD Titanium 10000 reel , Cortland compact floating line in 11/12# with 200 odd feet of 60 lb backing , leader 50 to 60 lb fluorocarbon x 4 to 9 ft long.

Babs: Predator 12# rod, Behemoth 9/10 reel, WF12F Lunker Hunter 50lbs core fly line, 50Lbs Berkley Big Game Fluorocarbon.

Dean: Epic boca Grande 12#, Behemoth 9/10#, WF12 Cortland compact and WF12F Lunker Hunter, 50lbs Berkley big game fluro.

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Thats a wrap

Thats a wrap

As many know, my favourite quarry is wild Fenland Pike and I do start fishing for them in June. I always check the water temperature at depth as we all know Pike don’t live at the surface, taking a temperature reading off the water surface is null/void in my books and If the water temp is 18-19C and below; I’ll fish. Coupled with landing them quickly and nice long rests before/after unhooking. Dissolved Oxygen levels are equally as important here too, low DO levels are fatal to most fish, and I would not fish in those circumstances. Monitoring water conditions, weather forecasts are all I seem to do to determine if I will be fishing on a set date/day.

Mid-June saw open season and me itching to get back out on the bank again enjoying the peace and quiet. Early season saw several fish to my net and quickly I was able to spot a pattern of when they were switching on/off to target my fishing time to suit. I love fishing poppers, seeing the fantastic takes, but there were times when I covered an area with a popper with no interest. Clipped on a wet pattern and next cast I was fish on! Always seemed to be the pattern and I ended up not having any fish last season on a popper, but still enjoyed casting them.

As the early Summer warmed up to water temperatures that were not suitable for pike, I did stop fishing for them and had the intention to start targeting Carp on fly. One big downside on this plan is that most the carp fisheries near me are crammed with anglers and I would be stuck on one peg (Covid has seen a huge increase in anglers on the banks). As I type I am optimistic that this Summer I shall try for carp again, Covid restrictions have lifted meaning a lot of these anglers will be headed back to Europe for their fishing leaving fisheries more open to move around etc.

As the weather started to cool down, things on the rivers started to get odd… I was getting plenty of takes, but 90% were spitting the hook in split seconds before I could set the hook and fish I thought I had a hook set gave a brief fight before getting off! Spoke to several anglers across the country and several reporting a similar scenario. OK so it’s not just me, yet this continued well into October and one thing I got very good at was dodging warp speed sharp 8” pike fly after a fish has let go when I had the rod bent putting pressure on the fish to bring it in.

In saying that, very late summer did see the first time ever for me imbed a pike fly into myself (or any hook for that matter)! When I am coaching clients, I always warn to keep an eye on the fly line especially in windy conditions. If you see your fly line casting over your head… DUCK! As there is a big pike fly following it! I often fish in gales/windy conditions in winter and often have a pike fly hit me, but as I am wearing several layers; I am never worried about it as the hook never makes it through the 1st layer. BUT in summer I am wearing far less layers and I am far more conscious of where that fly is. On this occasion I had a small back cast area of only 1 meter wide of tall weeds behind me, it was a breezy day and I was mid double haul in to my back cast when a gust pushed my fly from safe to ooohh crap before I could react. I felt the fly line hit my exposed arm, instinct to find the fly was quick to kick in…. fly line…. Leader….. trace… ah… there’s the fly. Imbedded in my right lower/inside forearm! I ditched my rod and set to getting the hook out. Thankfully over the years I had seen plenty of “unhooking vids” that showed how to get a large hook out on your own. With my only free hand I pressed the eye of the hook down into my arm, gripped the back of the hook in the same hand and pulled down/backwards. It didn’t budge so I had to try again and after 3 attempts it finally came out. Surprisingly painless which I put down to me getting it out before the body had time to realise and react to the pain. I know what you’re thinking, If it was barbless; it would have come out easy? Yes, your right, it would have; but I only semi-crush my barbs leaving a slight barb still in place and this has not changed how I do my hooks.

November came and things started to change, pike were finally gracing my net again and spent a couple of days fishing with Rodney Wevill before the annual Fenland Flyer. Always great fun fishing with Rodney, we had 2 fish each and chatted about all sorts of things through the couple of days fishing.

Day of the Fenland Flyer saw a turning point in my Winter fishing, things for many anglers of all methods across the Fens for the coming months and many other places in the country. People started to struggle, and blanking became the new normal! One thing seemed to be the cause; lack of baitfish shoaled up in their usual places over winter. Many of the drains still had lots of weedy areas as we had not had a cold enough winter to kill the weed off, this meant the baitfish still had plenty of places to hide from predators and didn’t need to shoal up in the big balls we are used to seeing in the past. Is this something that we are going to have to get used to with global warming? Possibly, which means we need to adapt our tactics to find the baitfish better = finding the pike. The other thing we found is due to the mild winter, there were reports of pike getting ready to spawn almost 2 months sooner than usual!

It wasn’t till last 2 months of the season that I had another Pike in my net, it was just a mid-single; but it was a welcome sight for sure! Things seemed to change for the better, at least I was now seeing action again for the last few weeks of the season and it seemed for others too.

2021-22 high lights: several doubles up to 12lbs early season and a nice one when I was fishing with Rodney. Fishing with Rodney Wevill, Rick Bellars, Amie Battams which was an absolute hoot and meeting up with 10 yr old Sophie the Carp catching Kid. Hearing Sophie and her Dad making future plans to go fly fishing made my coaching season. Best day out I had was with 2 clients from Peterborough where 6 Pike were landed between them and plenty more action that day.