Firstly, a big thank you to Fish4Flies for sending us a lovely selection of their winter trout flies.

Winter is a fantastic time for trout fishing small lakes. Especially this year when it has seemed to take months for the fish to get back on the feed after the summer heat, even more so down here in the south east of England.

In November there were even some huge buzzer hatches and I had a few sessions catching on bloodworms and buzzers at my local lake. Not something I would have expected this time of year. Towards the end of November it really started to cool down and the fish started chasing so it was on with the winter lures.

David at Fish4Flies sent us a great selection including some very nice looking bloodworms, lots of snakes, some amazingly well tied zonkers but, the king of the selection and now my favourite winter lure, the Humungous!

For the last few weeks the fish seem to be going mad for them. I’ve tried other lures, like my old favourite the Apache (also first encountered at Fish4Flies), but the Humungous has been the top fly for me way above any others. Gold, silver and white have all been catching fish over the last few weeks.

On the catch reports there have been lots of damsels used so it maybe a combination of it looking like a fish but also quite nymphy with the bead chain eyes that make it so versatile and lethal. It also fishes very well pulled fast and slow figure of eight, on the drop and on the hang. It also seems to work very well on the point with a bright small fly on a dropper about 10 feet up. Fish will come and look at the bright fly but take the more natural looking Humungous. I can’t see myself using anything else at the moment.