After the last outing being terrible fishing conditions and the fishing being excellent, this time we had decent conditions and the fishing was poor. We learned that the fish have been gorging on Caenis in the evenings, and sleeping it off during the day. it’s a not uncommon problem at this time of the year. The extent of the weed growth didn’t help, as large areas were effectively out of bounds.
While conditions were overall decent, it was a bit variable, to say the least. It started with a thick haar off the sea, and near calm. That changed to a mix of cloud and occasionally sunny spells, but with a cool SE breeze. The breeze changed directions several times, though – probably not helping the fishing. Then it all changed to much warmer and muggy conditions, which finally changed to rain – just in time to soak everything before the end of he session!
I fished with Stewart Barnes. We both fished dries most of the day – it was the easiest thing to do to avoid the weed. And early on it looked like being good enough, as I landed 2 brownies to a shuttlecock and a foam beetle. Then it went very quiet on us. We were not seeing much in the way of rises and there was no meat on the water for them to rise to. Stewart tried a change to washing line and was quickly into a fish that unfortunately fell off well into play. We soldiered on. I tried several changes of dries, trying to find a better bet. We found a few rising fish at the head of the wind (at the time) at the very top of Swing Gate Bay. They were so far upwind they would have been much easier to approach from the bank.
I tried another change – to a ginger half-hog. Blimey – I had a good take to it second cast. The fish went off like a scalded cat. It ran me to the backing… and then fell off! Thanks for that! That was the only offer the fly got. I tried a few other things, but the only offers they got all resulted in fresh-air shots. Stewart gave up on the washing line and went back to dries. He finally had a nice take to a foam-post Klinkhamer, tight to the NE shore, which produced a 3rd brownie for the boat.. After that, we plugged away. Just in the last half hour or so we had some chances with fish that were showing out in the main basin. But every offer resulted in a fresh-air shot.
A tough shift!
