Another day like all the rest – cold wind (this time NNW) and not a cloud in the sky. However, i think everything is adjusting to this new norm and life is going on around it. The air was filled with the sounds of willow warblers, chiffchaffs, black caps, reed buntings, reed warblers, whitethroats and house martins. Buzzers were hatching – good big ones too. There were alders, hawthorns, cowdungs and the odd drone fly on the go. The water was gin-clear, and the fish were rising in the sunshine.
Matt Wolstenholme and I set out to do a long drift from the top of the arm, down the wind to the main basin. Matt went hedge-bet type dry washing line with a foam daddy on the tail. I went dries, with a size 12 choco hog for the alders (and as a sighter) on the dropper, and a size 14 sooty olive paraloop hopper on the tail for the buzzers.
The early fish that showed interest were mostly half-hearted offers to the hog. The only ones that stuck were those that went for the hopper. After an hour or so, I was getting so many fresh-air shots to the hog, I had to take it off and put something smaller on. I opted for a 14 black half-hog. That did the same and also I couldn’t see it in the light we had. That got subbed for hare’s ear Klink. Finally, I had found something I could see and was able to catch a fish or two. The bulk were still going for the hopper, which was also getting its fair share of false takes. The huge number of false takes to the dries was perhaps not surprising, given the clarity of the water, the brightness and the extent to which fish now get twitchy from being caught and released. I don’t know what proportion of the offers I was getting were from rainbows, v brown, but the ones I was sticking too were mostly browns. The browns were good quality fish, too – almost indistinguishable from wild fish.
Matt, meanwhile was picking out a 3rd fish. I’m not sure what we are calling it. Green trout, or golden trout? There are species called both those names, but this was neither of them. It looks to be a fancy variety of rainbow, which is what blue trout are. You could clearly see them swimming along in the clear water – like looking at big golden orfe in a pond! Matt’s fish took his foam daddy. He also had fish to a loop-wing olive hopper and one of my sooty olive paraloops.
We were finding the fish concentrated towards the top of the arm, so repeated shorter drifts from the lily bed down to the narrow neck. We had spells where the fish were taking quite well, interspersed with spells of fresh-air shots and refusal after refusal. But it all added up to great sport. I had a couple of fish by covering not rises, but just seeing a fish swimming along to the side of the boat – the water was that clear!
Mid-afternoon, we had a tale to tell that would have been really impressive if it had had a slightly different ending. Matt hooked a fish that went off like a scalded cat. It took him onto the backing. At that point a flaw of some sort in the backing line surfaced, went up through the rings and parted company between Matt and the fish. Matt got to keep the rod and reel, and the fish got to keep the flies and the fly line. Thankfully, it being a floating line, it wasn’t too difficult to get on the motor and chase after it as it made its way across the water. Matt got hold of it and started hand-lining it in. The fish was still firmly attached and had no option but to come with it. Matt got the fish right to the side of the boat and I got the net and attempted to get it in. The problem now was that the fish was thrashing about at the surface and was right under the gunwale at Matt’s end. I couldn’t get the angle to get it into the net. We had 2 or 3 attempts and eventually the fish came off. But thankfully it didn’t take the flies – Matt got those back – along with his fly line. All good fun!
The Club’s 11 rods landed 81 fish.
