Fly-fishing the salt

Quite some time ago I was asked to do a series of articles on salt
water fly fishing in European waters. These articles concentrate
mainly on the Baltic Sea, but are principally applicable to any salt
water fishing. This is the somewhat philosophical introduction to
these articles.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mame raths outgrabe.
'Beware the Jabberwock, my son,
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch.
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious bandersnatch.'

Lewis Carroll

There seems to be a most remarkable dearth, one might even say a
decided lack, of slithy toves, jabberwocks, frumious bandersnatches,
and even jubjub birds nowadays. The oceans are nowhere near as
fruitful as they once were.

This is now very much the main part of the problem. If you wish to
catch a frumious bandersnatch , or even a non-frumious one, especially
on a fly, then you will have to find some mimsy borogroves, or at
least some other frequent haunt of bandersnatches and the like.

Otherwise, you will spend a very great deal of time hauling various
outlandishly named concoctions, like "Lefty´s Deceiver", or "Clousers
deep minnow", or even "Baltic woollys", "Grey Fredes", "Omoe brushes",
"Christmas tress" (heavier rods are required for this), and a host of
similar equally extreme sounding improbabilities, through a vast and
featureless expanse of salted H2O in abundance, for unconscionable
amounts of time, and never even see a slithy tove gyring and gimbling
in the wabe, much less a bandersnatch.

After a while this sort of thing will try the patience of a saint, and
these are also pretty rare nowadays. Also due to pollution I fear, but
more on a metaphysical plane, than because a load of irresponsible
loonies keep dumping **** in the sea, and at the same time scraping
the bottom of it even for minnows, and sand eels, which presumably are
then fed to Schroedinger´s cat, thus making accurate calculations on
future production impossible, for obvious reasons, as Heisenberg went
to enormous (and it seems mainly fruitless), pains to explain.

However, there is no point being defeatist, and if you wish to catch a
bandersnatch, you must perforce engage yourself in the study of such
beasts. Their biology, behaviour, favoured prey and conditions.

One must of course also be perfectly clear in one's aims. I just read
a post on another board which said something like "Hello, I am a
purist. I only fish with traditional dry flies and nymphs" (Etc, etc,
in similar vein, and mercifully snipped, purely for humane reasons,
and to prevent anybody vomiting on their keyboards).

Now this is all very well, but it seems bandersnatches don´t eat "Pale
morning duns", or "Pheasant tail nymphs", and few are found in chalk
streams, at least as far as is known, (although there is probably an
IGFA record for them, there is for everything else, from stone loach
to blue whales, you just need to know how to tie a Bimini twist), and
so, flinging such stuff, even should you be fortunate enough to
achieve the correct general direction, and the necessary delicacy and
of course infinitely tight loops required, it is extremely unlikely to
prove successful.

Of course there is no reason at all why you should not hunt
bandersnatches wherever you choose. Even the grass in the back garden
is quite appropriate for such exercises, and very rewarding they may
be. You must of course be aware, painful though such a realisation may
be, that hunting something, has about as much to do with actually
catching it, as Saddam Hussein has with Mother Theresa.

Hunting things has an attraction all of its own of course. There is
nothing like standing up to your nether regions in freezing salt
water, being battered by pounding surf, having your breath taken away
by a howling gale, holding ridiculously expensive and fragile
equipment, feeling icy salt water dribble down your waders at the
front, and icy fresh water (apart from a little acid, courtesy of
heavy industry several hundred miles away), dribble down your neck at
the back, while trying hopelessly to propel large heavily weighted
hairy things into the wild blue yonder, or at least a few yards into
the freezing fog bank, or blinding snow storm surrounding you, all the
time fearing for your ears and the nape of your neck, and hoping
against hope that the worst that will happen is that your nose will
freeze off.

In fact, just about the only other worthwhile comparison, is doing the
same thing in a pontoon boat, or even better in a float tube! The
rewards, although obviously quite intangible, must be huge, as there
is an ever increasing following for such pastimes.

Strangely enough, hardly any of these devoted followers ever bring
home bandersnatches. This is probably just as well, as even Mrs.
Beeton has nothing even remotely appropriate to offer on the subject
of cooking such. From which one is forced to conclude that they are
more or less useless for making home baked bread and biscuits.

So my friends, we are bound to make a decision, indeed possibly
several, but never fear, we will do so with the logic, common sense,
depth of meaning, humour, pathos, and brilliant clarity which you have
come to expect us to blather about.

You may find more information here;

http://www.flyforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8778

TL
MC