For various reasons (mostly Covid related) it had been nine months since Beardy Paul and I had last fished together. So, as soon as restrictions were loosened and the stay at home order lifted we booked a boat day at Bewl.
The early season fishing had been fantastic at most of the large reservoirs with reports of cricket score catches and fish starting to come to buzzers. However, the week before we went, the warm south-westerly wind turned into a cold north-easterly which combined with a bright sunny day when we arrived.
We set up quickly and motored down Bewl Straight towards Rosemary lane. The reports showed this area had been productive and we hoped the fish would be in the shallower water where we could fish nymphs as the day warmed up. Given the consistent wind direction we expected the fish to be close to the southern, windward bank but would start higher up and drift across.
It was cold first thing so we started off deeper; Beardy Paul had a DI3 and I opted for a fast intermediate with a black minkie on point, a black pearly cormorant on the middle dropper and a blob on the top dropper. The action started within the first ten minutes as my line went tight on a relatively slow figure of eight retrieve for my first rainbow of the day, which took the cormorant. The second and third trout came quickly after on the same drift, both to the cormorant and relatively early in the retrieve.
It seemed like the fish were higher in the water so Beardy Paul changed to a floater and was soon bringing his first rainbow to the boat, also on a cormorant. A couple more followed for Beardy Paul while things slowed down for me, so I also switched to a floater. We spent the next few hours happily drifting around Rosemary lane, mostly finding fish in the middle of the channel rather than close to the windward bank. It was consistent sport with fish coming to the mirage cormorant, black diawl bachs, black lure and the odd blob. The fish were taking all three flies on the cast so seemed to be between one and four foot down but almost all were taken on a slow figure of eight retrieve.
We had a couple more after lunch and tried a few more areas but the bright sun seemed to put the fish down. Nevertheless, it was a great early season day and great to be back out on the water and catching up with Beardy Paul. We had twenty to the boat in the end which is a fantastic day for us at Bewl.