The Complete Fisher Forum

[JCP]

[Bongoch]

Not surprised to hear the levels are down a bit as they did a 24h release of water earlier in the week to try and give the river Chew downstream of the lake a flush through.

Presently enjoying a holiday in Madeira so no reports from me until a week tomorrow at the earliest!

[arkle]

Blanked, again in the wheelyboat today, even though there was a comp on, Airflo I think.

Anyway, the ranger who helped us land etc, was saying there was a 12lbs+ brownie taken from Blagdon yesterday. Does anyone know anything about it ?
_________________
Hi there, I have around 40 yrs exp. of tying flies, incl. some semi-pro work. I've taught at adult evening classes, written for and supplied photos for most U.K. fly magazines. Given talks/slide shows/lectures/demonstrations etc. Am founder and life pres. of local Fly Dressers Guild (27years), our members have won more prizes for tying than any other similar club, we've also won several national flyfishing comps. I look forward to both learning from and contributing to this highly respected forum.

[Allrounder]

[arkle]

Yes Al, He also blanked though did connect briefly with a few. The ranger was saying that many in the comp also blanked & he thought the winning bag was 9 fish.
_________________
Hi there, I have around 40 yrs exp. of tying flies, incl. some semi-pro work. I've taught at adult evening classes, written for and supplied photos for most U.K. fly magazines. Given talks/slide shows/lectures/demonstrations etc. Am founder and life pres. of local Fly Dressers Guild (27years), our members have won more prizes for tying than any other similar club, we've also won several national flyfishing comps. I look forward to both learning from and contributing to this highly respected forum.

[mc07fly]

I heard today from JH of a huge 16 lb. brown caught a few days before my visit last week.
Sadly, the phone taking the pic was nearly as old as the fish but Grandfather Brown was the real deal.

Cheers,
McFly

[Allrounder]

I fished for Crocs from a boat yesterday but thought these observations might be useful for those thinking of fishing Chew for trout from boat and bank.

I couldn't help but notice that weed growth towards the bottom of Herons is a lot slower than in previous years. Due to the good clarity I found surprisingly large areas of clean bottom off the point behind 'Bobs House' and further round into the bay and while there were some patches of weed especially down below the old road towards the road on the Nunnery side, I would have no worries fishing any of the popular areas from the bank. The same can be said for Villice bay . More out of curiosity than anything else I went right up around into the bay and was surprised at how little weed there was and that could be said about the bottom end of the bay generally. Remember I was using a pike fly on an intermediate line and I still rarely caught any weed!

So while there are signs now of weed growth in all the usual areas, it seems less pronounced this year than in recent years. Of course that can change pretty quickly if the clarity remains good and as the water warms up but I hope this info will prove useful to anyone thinking of getting out.

Alan
_________________
Member of ...
The Angling Trust
BRFFA
B.A.S.S.
Pike Fly Fishing Association

If you see me on the bank, say hello!

[tenet]

Thanks Al - hopefully getting out next week when winds die down. Did you get any crocs?

[Allrounder]

I had 5 Jacks to around 7lb but nothing to write home about. Good fun though and makes a nice change from twiddling nymphs !

Alan
_________________
Member of ...
The Angling Trust
BRFFA
B.A.S.S.
Pike Fly Fishing Association

If you see me on the bank, say hello!

[BristolFlyer]

Good to hear about weed situation. Someone once told me that a sunny warm April = a weedy summer

Makes sense to me.

I'm out somewhere on the lakes this evening. I've got a run of 5 blanks on lake, river and channel to break!

[BristolFlyer]

Didn’t blank! I chose Cheddar water as my mate Stu was already there and had a very good evening with a bit of rain, a wind that swung from SE to direct W and a crazy bright triple rainbow.

Cheddar getting quite weedy but still very fishable with a washing line.

I had a good fish second cast on red DB but it was a long wait until the next pull in which time Stu had a stonking fish that went like a train. The smile says it all!



I had another about 9pm and stayed until last knockings when there was a massive hatch of small pale lime-coloured buzzers, larger green ones, caddis and what I swear were mayflys. No interest from the fish except for one that was finning about all around me and driving me a bit crazy until it swam straight past my legs and I saw that it had been badly mangled by a pike and was not well.

The boats that I could see were moving about quite a bit and went in early, so probably quite tough.

A bit of a slog but really good to be out again.

[Allrounder]

Great report and pics, Dave!

I was helping out with the Corporate Event yesterday but concentrated my efforts on the other end of the lake. As requested I arrived after 10am and the first task was to spend 2 hours finding some fish for the attendees later in the day. Most boats headed towards the dam but after a chat with Martin Cottis I headed in the opposite direction. The conditions were good with a light breeze and broken cloud cover and my first stop was Holt Bay where I landed a fish on a Green DB fished on a washing line. Next stop was Wood Bay where I found 3 regulars fishing Rainbow Point which is always an encouraging sign. It soon became clear that there were a few fish in the bay and after 10 minutes or so I had an explosive take that went off like a runaway train, taking me into my backing before shedding the hook at range. No more pulls after that and all too soon it was time to go back in for the briefing and to pick up our guests. I had two sessions with 2 anglers for 90 minutes each in Wood Bay which is no time at all for people who have not picked up a fly rod before, but despite not catching anything themselves (hardly anyone caught) they seemed to enjoy the experience which included spotting the occasional rising fish and watching the bank anglers landing a couple of fish so all was good.

After the event we were allowed to take the boat back out for the evening so I headed straight for Wood Bay again. Not much was rising but I managed to land a runaway bus (a bit smaller than the runaway train I lost earlier !) weighing 3-4 and another weighing 3-0 before Esox joined in the fun and bit off my Booby Damsel! After replacing my point fly I fished on, missing another pull to the Green DB on the dropper before coming off around 9pm. So an enjoyable day and I must say all the fish I caught were hard fighting and in superb condition...


Just a shame my photography is no match for Dave's ...


Until next time ...

Alan
_________________
Member of ...
The Angling Trust
BRFFA
B.A.S.S.
Pike Fly Fishing Association

If you see me on the bank, say hello!

[BristolFlyer]

Ah! That explains the marquee on the lawn, the number of 'three in a boat' that I saw and why so many boats went in early

I'm glad you had a couple Al!

[MarkS]

I was at the same gig as Alan Thursday. Not been on the ressies much at all this year.

Same issue in the morning session as Alan trying to tempt the number of quite active fish in Pipe Bay and out over the weed. Managed to miss two on mini lures and one on a dry but nothing hooked up. They were active but difficult to tempt.

Hosting the Yeo Valley teams of two was the same format as Al described. The frustration of knowing fish were not going to hang themselves was going to make it tough. I set up both rods with washing line with differing mini lures on the point and a single nymph on a dropper. I fished the same area as the morning as there were plenty of fish there. Both sets of my guests were women with no fishing experience at all but all appeared keen to have a go. Very difficult to get people casting that had never picked up a fishing rod before and do some fishing in the 90 minute sessions. That being said both pairs of guests grasped the basics and all four managed to be able to cast a short but very respectable distance. The first guests did not catch any fish unfortunately but did enjoy the experience and were genuinely showed interest. One of these two could shoot a good three rod lengths of line and turn over the leader.
The next pair also managed to grasp the principle of casting and could get a straight line out. I had seen the odd boat with rod bent but knew that several if not all had been dropped and not netted. About an hour into this session the damsel booby was nabbed by a nice fish and panic set in for the guest and myself to try and ensure this was netted. After a bit of a tussle the fish came to hand. One boat had netted in excess of 8 fish from Holt bay but apart from that very few were caught. At the weigh in our fish was the biggest of the day to a guest angler so happy with that and especially that she had cat the line all on her own and hooked it and played it with minimal instruction. On spooning it was rammed with damsel nymphs.

Had they been longer sessions I would have gone to the top end. So that is what I did with my couple of hours free time after dropping off the guests. Fish moving from the off and I went about setting up the dries at anchor. Three other boats came up but only one stayed and he was fishing dries like I was. Both of us took drifts from the south shore over the edge of the weeds into deeper water. Both of us had fish. I ended up with four netted, one bust me off in the weed and two or three missed. Flies were a big red accounting for two fish and the one lost in the weed, one to a cdc shuttlecock with hot spot butt and one to a cdc loop wing hopper also with a hot spot butt.
No real lumps but best fish at about three and a half pounds.
Came back in just after 8pm having had a really enjoyable day. Nice to catch up with people including Alan.

Masses of damsel, midge, sedge and good numbers of buzzers.

Cheers,
Mark

[JCP]

Really...
''Stuffed with damsel nymphs'' Well would you Adam and Eve it..