This never, EVER happens – You get to the water, watch for a while then carefully choose your set-up. You select your latest tying bench creation, cast out a beautifully line, give it two short pulls to straighten and WHAM! you catch a fish. Only yesterday, this did happen!
I’ve been to my new club water three times now. The first time, back on April 1st, was a beautiful day with a lake full of freshly stocked trout. I spent a fantastic morning trying not to catch too many fish. It was great sport but just a little to easy. They were literally jumping on to any fly dragged in front of them. 10 fish by 2 pm and that was my day done. A lovely first day.
A week later I managed an afternoon session after a meeting with work. I arrived at the lake and the water was bubbling with fish taking buzzers of the surface. Perfect conditions! You could see the buzzers hatching off in the waters surface so I quickly geared up and popped a CDC buzzer on. After a few missed takes I caught a lovely fish straight off the top. Five minutes later and the sky went black, there was a huge clap of thunder and I very quickly put down the large carbon rod I was holding in the air. As the rain came I retreated to the car and sat there for 45 mins while the storm ripped through the surrounding countryside. When I finally got back to the lake there was no sign of any fish on the surface. A few hours walking round the lake trying different buzzers and generic nymphs brought another 5 fish so a pretty good few hours considering the conditions. I was really enjoying my new local lake!
So, back to yesterday. It was freezing cold, cloudy with a good breeze. As I got to the lake a fellow fisherman – at least I think it was a man, could have been anything wrapped up in those hoods and hats and scarves and glasses – walked past hunched into the wind and mumbled about the cold and how he’d only caught one fish. Humph, not what you want to hear when you just reach the water. So I geared up, threaded up my intermediate line and popped on a new Mackay nymph that I’d tied up the other day and then cast out. Two pulls to straighten the line out and bang, I had a fish on! That never, EVER happens!
I continued with the same fly and intermediate line but got nothing else for the next 30 mins. The first fish came on the drop so I figured I was getting below the fish with a sinking line so changed to a floater. After trying a few different buzzer patterns my old favourite (a buzzer tied with a bit of black wool as the body that flaps around off the back of the hook) did the trick for another 2 fish. A change in the weather saw a few more fish coming to the surface so I put a sparkly Bobs Bit on the point and a small black quill buzzer with a red butt on a dropper and this combination seemed to do the trick. Fish were taking both flies and takes were coming thick and fast. Great sport again. After a few hours of catching and missing takes, I was up to 8 in total but I was extremely cold and hungry so decided to forego the last 30 mins of daylight and get off home. But, who can resist that last cast…and then another last cast…and then another. On one of my final casts I was pulling the line back in, my fly only about 15 yards out and I could just see the end of the line coming back through the water when a leviathan of silver came up from the depths at a ridiculous speed right up behind my fly and just as quickly turned away showing a flash of silver that looked like at least a few feet long before it disappeared again into the murk. There are some very big fish in this lake!
General conditions – Cloudy and flipping cold for April!
Wind direction – Easterly
Flies that worked – Black buzzers, sparkly Bobs Bit, Mackay nymph