I had the pleasure of taking Keith and Steve, visitors from America, fishing yesterday. It was a bright sunny day and perfect for some dry fly action. The guys both caught wild brownies and Keith safely returned this, his first ever, grayling.

The Nautilus FWX fly reel is a serious piece of tackle. Beautifully machined from a chunk of barstock aluminium to extremely precise tolerances. Everything about it screams quality, very loudly. The reel comes as standard in black or brushed silver (as pictured) but can be special ordered in a range of colours.
The technical spec on the Nautilus website is very impressive. Now you could justifiably ask why I'd want a reel with this level of sophistication when going river fishing for wild brownies or grayling, and the answer is I don't! I don't need a disc drag that would stop a raging bull, or a sand and dust proof sealed drag system, or an anodised finish to withstand saltwater, or a reel and spool that fits together with surgical precision. I don't need any of that, I could just buy a piece of junk and it would probably fulfil my needs adequately. But, and it's a big but. I don't feel the need to justify why I like good quality tackle, I just do, I like the look and feel of it, the confidence it brings when using it, the knowledge it's been manufactured with care and pride and will last a lifetime. It gives me pleasure using nice kit - and this is a very nice piece of kit.
P.S. the rubber 'O' ring on the counterweight is not standard but my own addition!

A stunning day's fishing yesterday. The weather was perfect, warm, bright and just a gentle breeze.
I started with an hour on a mountain lake chasing wild brownies before moving on to the river. The peaty brown coloured lake holds a good head of small wild brownies that are wary and very fast but rise readily to a dry fly.
Late morning I moved down to the river, there was little visible movement and no rise forms. Spiders and nymphs did nothing so decided to try a dry. I tied on a single size 16 IOBO Humpy, just as a few March Browns started to hatch. The next 2 hours was fantastic with several fish rising to the fly, unfortunately the grayling don't realise they are out of season so several were caught, but quickly released.

Lee Wulff had many talents, fly fishing being but one of them. Below are a couple of quotes from him that perfectly sum up my attitude to fishing:

"The finest gift you can give any fisherman is to put a good fish back, and who knows if the fish you caught isn't someone else's gift to you"  Lee Wulff

"Game fish are too valuable to only be caught once."  Lee Wulff