Anyone admit to trying

I will admit to trying over the early years of Fly fishing, as I came from a coarse fishing background, using Bread and a liquid attractant:shock:, but have not resorted to using anything except fur and feather for the last 10 years.

Come on am I the only person brave enough to admit to trying these? I know others have to but will you admit to it?

Lol can any one remember when I made a cocoa pop buzzer ( for a laff ) and asked joe Forster if I could use it at beamish lakes ( he went ape ) threatens to throw me in and ban me , still haven't tried it yet
As he asked to see it and binned it . I said its ok I've another and he went through my fly box . That's when I realised he was up set , ( I didnt have another ) since then I've never added any think to a hook that wasn't allowed . Oh and joe and I are still friends .

No I never have and never will, we are fly fishermen/women, and we are supposed to be using artificial flies made from fur, feather and now synthetic materials. If you want to catch fish so badly that you have to cheat by using bread, sweetcorn, maggot, powerbait in all its guises or even putting attractants on your flies then you should go to multi method lakes like the Derwent and join the dark side

If you were caught or even suspected of doing this in a competition you would be banned from all further competitions and probably a lot of fisheries.

Not really i was given a fly floatant that was chemically altered to catch fish but apart from leaving a oil slick on the water it was crap

Nope , hand on heart , we all like to have an advantage or killer pattern . But to use additives is cheating and you are only fooling yourself if you think otherwise

Nahhh- With my wild fishing I generally have a choice of fly, spinner or bait and if conditions dictate one will work then I go for that.
With stocked fish- strictly fly...thats what you go there for- to catch them on fly.
I would like a go on a stocked water with my 1-12g rod and soft rubber baits though. A 1lb perch feels like a monster on it so a 3lb rainbow would feel like a shark! I should add that it has less beef than a 5 weight fly rod!

I have admitted to using bread and liquid attractant in the past, years in the past, (totally agree with lee they didnt work apart from an oil slick ) I will also add, I have never ever used any of the above in any competition I have ever fished.

I purchased one small bottle of attractant many years ago from Adams in Darlington from the old guy, not the young one, who took over when the old guy died, and its been closed down for a few years now. This was in 2001 as it was the year Foot and Mouth closed a lot of fisherys down, I got it when I was still in the dark side coarse fishing and fly and worm fishing at Grassholme, but had started fly fishing if you could call it that 12 years ago.

Long before I knew any better, through forums on the internet, I did not have a computer till 2002, Site days out, mixing and fishing with you lot and making my own creations, Big Ugly, (Clarkie) Short n ugly, Black (leighton) fritz with red flashes in the tail, The Big thing with the stretchy tail OMG did I make that, the Snot, and a fair few others that have caught me and others a lot of fish. I came from the Dark side and wont go back, neither will I use anything other than what is allowed fur, feather and synthetics, I enjoy my fishing whether I catch or not its a day out, to be totally honest I take fish to give away, I am not desperate to catch, unless it is a competition then thats where practice comes in, to fish the place weeks ahead of the day to find out what works. I have said before anyone can check my gear out anytime I have nothing to hide.

But no nicking me flies as im only carrying a couple of each pattern, once they are gone they gone, last time at Langley I gave all my flys away that I was catching on then I lost mine up a tree and did not have a spare one.

Oh forgot to add I had posted a picture of said fly ( I use the name loosely ) on the web site joe ran 2-3 days before . Some joke I nearly got banned . Boy did it backfire , mind the lads on the site thought it was funny  and joe did eventually see the funny side .
Since then I haven't done any thing like it again
I have however made a few flys that are barely legal apparently
Such as stews favourite the Jordan with 2 tails tested at Chatton with permission I must add .

Oh is that why you went happy with me knocking the last one

All my fly's are legal now at all fishery's but I have a lot that have not had a swim, so need the barbs knocking down, the only thing that maybe illegal about some of them, some (ok most) are way over competition size, but I have not fished a competition where size of fly has played a part.
How many people totally knock the barbs down, or if getting takes but not hooking up would admit to pulling the barb back up a little?

Ive been asked in the past why i can get fish lineing up infront of me when i am fishing .Some say they have seen the fish jumping on my line when casting to them.
Well i am no cheat when it comes to fishing.
If i had to cheat i would start buying my fish at Tescos.
I tell people my success is simply down to the WD40 that i use to clean my rod -line-reel ect . What else can it be?.

Having just restarted fly fishing after a 20-25 year layoff due to work commitments....I have got to admit that I was a bit suprised by some of the "Flies" that are now available as legitimate attractors....however, it didn't take me long to be sucked in by the hype, and after nine months I now have numerous fly boxes full of things that I know I will probably never use..... including some that cause a wry chuckle when viewed by the real experts. My latest favourite is a beaded buzzer that to me looked suspiciously like a maggot, however I only used it once, hit a wooden seat on the backcast, obliterated the beads, and then continued to catch 4 fish on a nice shiny gold hook. I intend trying it again soon.

Was it a single seat or a double seat that you caught on the back cast.
The Maid Marion that was invented at Leighton Reservoir was created when an angler caught some grass on the backcast and then caught a fish with the hook covered in grass.

Well I thought this thread would create a lot of interesting replies are you all asleep?

A few years back 4 of us were at Moffat fishery,it was rock solid,hardly a fish being caught apart from 2 of the guys i was with,they were hauling them out.So up me and the othr lad go to see what they are banging them on.No great secret fly but bloody "Putty" made with salmon roe,the 2 of us walked away disgusted and i`m glad we were`nt all travelling home in the same car!Oh and by the way one of the culprits was the manager until recently of an Ayrshire fishery.I will say though that it was lethal,we could see shoals of fish lying in the areas they had baited!

I have been known to fly fish with a maggot in France for chub etc.

hi

dont will all use varnish or another substince to finish the heads of our flys so arnt we all guilty

dAVE

Talking to a guy one day whilst fishing, and happened to get quite close to his fly box, while sitting next to him . I noticed that his fly box had a very distinctive strong smell of liquorice.... Is this a known cheat?, also 30 years ago an old friend always kept his flies in his tobacco tin, which he said improved the potency of his flies...Anyone else heard of this?

I also noticed that for the site day at Tweedale ,all the anglers were ordering pies, surely thats not an acceptable lure?

I was on the Wear winter Grayling fishing and a fellow offered me some "Taffy".
He said it was for migratory fish.
That was salmon roe in a paste.
I never tried the stuff.
I was doing ok with Brandling. Who said i am a purist?.

I've never used any sort of attractant ever and never would I think if you do use these things then you should hang up the fly rod and turn to bait fishing.
I do know of someone who's popular on the ressy and smaller Stillwater scene that does regularly catch significant numbers that has admitted to dipping flys and materials if he still does it I don't know.

Never fished the area afterwards but will admit to throwing some carp pellets in just to see what happened the trout came from all over, short feast only 6 pellets. This was about 10 yrs. ago.

The Baliff up at Teesdale used to call my GH-Sedge the Trout Pellet.
Ive caught lots of fish on a Deer Hare Sedge pattern.
The wild brown trout love it on the Upper Tees and its easy to spot in the fast water. Them fish have never seen a trout Pellet.
We used to throw gravel onto the feeding ponds at Hury to get the fish on the boil. They thought it was feeding time.

middlemast wrote:hi

dont will all use varnish or another substince to finish the heads of our flys so arnt we all guilty

dAVE

no dave we are not all guilty at all chemicals in varnish glue ect ect can not be removed. if I went to a trout fishery and asked if I could use a blob I had soaked in sweet corn juice or a lure that was soaked in white vinegar I doubt they would say yes, an artificial fly is made up from man made fibres feathers ect ect NOT SOAKED IN ADATIVES. but if I asked if I could fish a UV buzzer or a epoxy buzzer they would say yes. I don't care less if a angler wants to soak his marabou in dinosaur pi$$ or rocking horse $hit we all no what is allowed and permitted on most still waters and ressi in the north east.

Well said lee, varnish and resin do not give off scent in the water so can not be classed as an additive.
I believe if your using any scent or additives of any kind on your flies your cheating.......simples!!

i wonder if gink or the likes of frogs fanny give off a scent that the trout like when "dipping" dries

most dry fly additives are silicone based and will leave a small slick like WD40. even powder will be left around the dry as it lands on the water.

I know from sea fishing that a spray of WD40 on your lure or bait will attract the fish, i tested it a few times on piers with anglers standing shoulder to shoulder and my catch rate was higher than the guys next to me.