We’ve had a very hot August and beginning of September down here in the South East so the only fishing I’ve done is a trip to Farmoor with Beardy Neil a few weeks ago. I went to my local lake twice in early August and blanked both times. My only 2 blanks of the year so far and totally expected given the water temps and sunny days. First trip the fish were there but not interested. Second trip there wasn’t a single sign of any fish at all. So I left it for a few weeks until the temps dropped.
On Friday 23rd Sept I visited the lake for a few hours to see if things had changed. The water temps were down to 19˚C, fish were showing and lively and it had been restocked a few days earlier. After our visit to Farmoor and the exciting day we had on fry patterns I thought I’d try the same tactics. I had different degrease of success with different sized fry patterns. Certain patterns got a lot of follows and grabs but no good hookups. Other smaller patterns got slammed into and swirled around but again no good hookups. I tried pulling fast and slow. When the fish hit the fry I tried still pulling and also letting the fly lie still as if it had been stunned. But nothing resulted in a good clean hook up. I never know whats best to do in these situation; carry on pulling or stop? Any advice welcomed!
In the end I ditched the classic fry patterns for flies that were a lot smaller and more suggestive and tried to target fish I could see. This seemed to work better and I caught 2 nice rainbows, one on a cormorant and one on a pearly wickhams. Both flies could easily have been taken for a small fry so maybe size was a factor. And maybe the fish weren’t quite ready to feed properly and it was just the fresh stockies chasing my fry patterns. Still, nice to be back up there with some good action even though only 2 got to the net.
Hopefully over the next few weeks the temps will drop even more and the action will really start!