Great conditions for this outing. Perhaps a tad cool for mid-May, but with light winds it didn’t feel it, and we had 100% ceiling the whole day, without it raining – until a wee bit drizzle in the last 10 minutes. The winds were also variable – in both strength and direction.
Mel Mitchell and I set out, headed for the south end of the dam with a view to drifting along it, but no sooner had we started, but the wind turned 180 degrees and blew us onto the dam. Restart, further out…
I was on dries, while Mel was on a 3 ft tip washing line, with a couple of nymphs on the droppers and a tequila FAB on the tail. It didn’t take Mel long to get his first fish, followed by a second… and a couple more lost. Meanwhile, I was doing nothing with the dries. There were fish rising, but I could not see anything on the surface for them, except bits of vegetation. I persisted with dries, trying a few different footprints – all with equal lack of interest from the fish. After a good couple of hours, Mel had added a 3rd fish… and then a 4th…
By now, we were working away out in the wide open water between the jetty and the draw-off tower. I gave up on dries and put up the other rod with a 10 ft tip with 2 nymphs and a tequila FAB on the point (well, Mel’s FAB was working, so I saw no reason to choose differently!). I wasn’t long started when Mel hooked his next fish. I put my rod down to get a photo of him in action, but I never got that one taken, as I was getting the shot lined up, I heard a shooshing sound, and looked down to see my line snaking out through the rings. Oops! That was my first one, on the FAB. After that, we had a good wee spell when we were both catching as we went through groups of fish. I think we had 4 twos-ups over the day. We found a good line, straight west of and heading towards the valve tower.
By mid-afternoon I was seeing more rising fish and thinking surely dries would take a fish or two??? So, I gave it another go with the dries – again trying different stuff. I even tried a grunter! I did have one nice rise to an Adams hopper, but I totally fresh-aired it. I gave up on dries a second time and went back to the washing line. We moved further west, still focusing on open water, and we found fish there as well. We finished with 24 to the boat, with Mel taking 60% of them. We both had a few on the nymphs, but the tequila FABs did most of the heavy lifting.
Elsewhere, Keith Logan was top rod, with 20, taken on a 12 ft tip, and later a mid glass, to cormorants, Diawls and a cat booby on the point. Trever had 13 to a midge tip, with a UV Muskins and a tequila booby.
The club’s 10 rods landed 90 fish.
