Whats wrong with my flies?

Have you ever wondered if perhaps just maybe, despite your best efforts, boundless enthusiasm, months and years of thought, study, reading all the magazines, books and even a couple of lessons, has it ever occured to you that perhaps despite having all the right equipment.....you are just no good at it?

The snow and ice having given way to temperatures in the balmy 10 degree range (52 F) the river running at a sensible level and fairly clear, and after weeks of abstinence I finally made it down to the Derwent with copius amounts of tackle, waders, rods, zillions of flies for every occasion including my unrivaled colection of nymphs none of which I can remember the name of but they are very er..nymphlike. I even bought some of them (the others I tied myself) so they must be the business.

So, I turn up and after a mere 20 minutes or so fighting my way into my waders and tying my new secret weapon - a florocarbon leader with and a highly experimental 2 fly easy tangle set-up, I'm ready to go. I stroll up the bank away from the car and the bridge out of sight of Joe Public, (I hate being watched whilst making a fool of myself) and spot another couple of guys fishing.

With floats, feeders and maggots. Not a fly in sight.

Just to encourage me they proudly show me a photo of the fish they've just put back. They wish me luck with a smile and I stumble off.

Actually I had quite a good day, I caught 3 trees and a small bramble. Not bad for an aftenoons fly fishing. Still the grayling will be there next week and if it was easy it wouldn't be so much fun now, or would it??

Here's a picture of a very big and quite grand Pressigny.The countryside is a bit like Derbyshire, except its nowhere near as busy, populated, etc. At the bottom of the hill is a beautiful river called the Claise that actually does have fish in. I know cos I've seen them. What better place can there be to go and not catch a fish? How stunning is that?