I got to the water about 7.45 and found a nice Westerly breeze with some broken cloud, but it was quite cold about 5 degrees. I didn’t want to mess around much today and just enjoy being out fishing today. I set up one rod with a slow intermediate line, 12ft of 8lb fluorocarbon tippet and a beaded green and black zonker type fly.
The reservoir was full so I aimed to get to the bird hide and then North Shore as soon as possible where you can get a decent distance from the path. Couldn’t resist a quick cast at diggers bench, but nothing came of it, although a fish did swirl but not near the fly.
The area before the bird hide was flat calm so I didn’t stop there. At the North shore I covered the water in front of the bench, nothing close in so I gradually waded out and lengthened the cast. On about the sixth cast a couple of taps followed by a good pull resulted in a decent Rainbow of about a pound and a half. First fish of the new season for me. Next few casts resulted in taps and on one occasion my fly line moving off to the right about five yards. I failed to hook up on any. Changed to a 2” white snake with the hook at the back and connected with a 2lb Rainbow, with no preliminary taps or pulls. I thought I had the answer, but the next 10 minutes was uneventful. I guess if I had stayed long enough another fish or two would have moved nearby, but I wanted to fish the whole lake.
West shore next and a change of tactics. Both fish earlier had been caught quite shallow, so I changed to a sink tip line, with two flies, a green beaded size 10 mini lure (a bit like a montanna see photo) with a pearl bodied black cormorant on the dropper. The breeze was now behind me and after about 10 minutes after a slow figure of 8 I hooked into another 2lb rainbow.
After this fish I carried on along the West Shore with an odd cast here and there until I reached Stocky bay where 5 or 6 other anglers were fishing including Ron, Frank Andy and Paul. Ron told me he was getting a lot of action and had caught 2 or 3 fish in a short space of time. I started 30 yards to his left and first 3 casts resulted in 3 fish, all 2 to 2 ½ lbs one of which was a double hook-up but unfortunately the point fly fish snapped me. It was very noticeable that it went quiet when cloud obscured the sun, but as soon as the sun popped out it turned on the trout.
Frank came along followed by Andy and it wasn’t long before we were all playing a fish at the same time!
In the distance I could see Paul bringing in a few fish, Ian came along to say he had caught a couple on dries from the North Shore, and he was soon into a fish 50 yards to the left, Eddie came along and caught too!
I had another double hook-up and managed to land both. I left it at that and spent the rest of the time chatting and taking photo’s
This was the most enjoyable start to the season I can remember. Thanks must go to Leon Fisher and South West Lakes Trust for managing the fishery and building on the excellent season we had last year.
