South West Lakes Trout Report

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South West Lakes Trust latest trout reports can be viewed below.

https://www.swlakestrust.org.uk/news/sw-lakes-weekly-trout-fisheries-round-up-we-26th-march?fbclid=IwAR0sCRla99k_74dQdhG4M6my0AcJFYv39Pn5v0HipNH-7SjKWtegyTxqzrs

Roadford Rod Average: 3.00 Per rod day

Regular Roadford angler Rodney Wevill from Launceston caught 5 browns using humungous and blue zulu fly patterns on a floating line on Sunday, after catching 4 on Friday, noting that fish were found in the shallows.

View the full Catch Report here

Read our guide to fishing at Roadford here

Check out our Roadford fishing map here

Wistlandpound Reservior near Barnstaple is fishing well with some stunning wild browns tempted bu anglers offering small black flies and lures.

Early season success at Wistlandpound

    With the Rivers running too high for salmon it was time to visit Wistlandpound and reconnect with its splendid wild browns. After an icy start warm sunshine was illuminating the reservoir as I arrived. A blue sky  and calm waters full of nature’s reflections.

            It was good to be back on this familiar water with a rod in hand. After last summer’s drought it’s great to see the water level full to the brim. Significant growth of withy has restricted access to some areas of the lake but this is not a problem with the low number of anglers fishing the lake. On this day I was surprised to see three other anglers fishing.

            This was only to be a short visit searching various areas. I had set up a floating line and started off with a small black lure on the point and a black cruncher on a dropper. The water felt cool as I waded out and started to search the water. The occasional fish was rising far out. It probably wasn’t ideal conditions but the beauty of the surroundings made up for any lack of action.

            The far bank looked appealing with a slight breeze caressing the shoreline. I wandered over and waded out into a gap in the bankside growth. There were good numbers of buzzer shucks drifting on the surface and a fish rose just beyond the rod tip. The session was drawing to an end and I yearned for that connection.

            Suddenly the line zipped delightfully tight and I lifted the rod to feel a strong fish pulsing at the end of the line. I played the fish carefully and was relieved when it slid over the rim of the net. A perfect wild brown trout, its flanks golden with hues of bronze decorated with dark spots and vivid crimson.

 

            I had a few more casts, reflecting upon the beauty of the fish I had caught. I spoke with another angler fishing further along the bank as I headed for home. He was pleased to have tempted half a dozen good browns. I pondered that I perhaps could have caught more but In truth I was contented with that one fine brown and I know that the season is young and there are hopefully  plenty more days to fish.

Musings on Angling literature from Richard Wilson

Many thanks to Richard Wilson for sharing his latest musings on angling literature and the realities of early season excursions.

Sex, Drugs & A Perfect Snake Roll

Some of the finest fishing literature is drenched in sun-kissed hedonism and fuelled by drink, drugs, sex and fighting. So what am I doing wrong?

It’s early March and, at last, I’m on a real river. It’s the moment of transition out of my close-season daydreaming. A rude awakening.

Every year this re-entry induces a psychological shock as a churning ice flow crashes into my expectations. So why, after so many years of winter prepping, is this always a surprise?

Before we go chasing fish, please come back with me to my close-season habitat. My den is a place of comfort, clutter and a friendly armchair.  There are plenty of fishing books, very few of which are of the ‘how-to’ genre. Real books offer tactile pages and vicarious riverbanks.

Meet the righteous stuff of my Dreamworld: From my armchair, I can prepare for the coming season with a dabble in Hemingway’s knuckled prose, sun-kissed marlin and drunken machismo.  Surely (I hope) he would have been knocked senseless by Norman “A River Runs Through It” Maclean and his brawling brother.

And, from my playlist, what exactly did Louis Armstrong mean by his summery “Gone fishin’ – I’m real gone man” Or how about John Gierach’s story of meeting a familiar face, knowing only that it was last seen “under the Haight-Ashbury sign” in a late ‘60s summer?

For more context, I could turn to flamboyant jazz maestro, author and fishing junkie George Melly. He was truly well gone, but back then the only snow in the jazz clubs went up your nose. And let’s not forget the Great Gonzo angler-provocateur Hunter S Thompson whose sun-soaked drink and drug-crazed fishing exploits would have been fatal for most of us.

It’s heady stuff and, back in my den, I’m left wondering if self-medicating my lengthening midlife crisis counts as exuberant hedonism. On reflection, I decide probably not – but live in hope.

Many of the best fishing books live hard and fast, mixing the profound with the earthily profane.  And nowhere do these two primal urges collide with more urgency than in the timeless prose and jaw-dropping life story of Negley Farson, author of Going Fishing. He was the real deal; a buccaneering, hard-drinking, hard-living, hard-fishing all-American writer who really did drink Hemingway under the table. And, whisper it quietly, isn’t Hemingway’s branding looking a bit past its sell-by date? Just sayin’.

No list could be complete without the soothing influence of Harry Plunket Greene. He was light on drink, drugs and fighting, even though he had a direct family link to Mary Quant without whom the psychedelic 60s would have been beige. His utterly charming 1924 book Where Bright Waters Meet is a page-turning delight about favourite beats, some of which I know intimately. He transports me to a time when it’s always June and the evening rise is dappled perfection.

That was then. Now I’m in northeast Scotland where, thanks to my winter book-worming, I have arrived primed to hit the water with rod loaded and dander rampant (that’s a Scottish heraldry thing).

This is the Oykel, a river I have long wanted to fish – but harsh reality is not quite the image I’ve spent the winter incubating.  Spring, it isn’t. The baby rabbits, lambs, migratory birds and the damsels a-dancing are nowhere to be seen. It’s immediately clear that my cock-sure arrival is hopelessly misjudged.

The view from the hut.

Today the river is vengeful and the gillie is insanely lightly dressed. I’m wearing every layer I have because the wind, rain, hail and even the top 6 inches of the foam-flecked water are all travelling upstream. Everything is flotsam except the salmon, of whom there is no sign – and who can blame them? They’re all tucked up warm, comfortable and far out at sea.

It gets worse. I am on the right bank fishing down and the only cast that might work doesn’t. So another cack-handed Snap T variant disappears upstream, a flailing line spun from angry eels. And I’m still in mid ‘Snap’.  I may remove the fly for my own safety and I’m starting to hallucinate with cold.

My face is blue, my hands are rigid and soon I’ll be the late departed and shuffling off to meet Isaac Walton. I think I see my fishing partner Charles float past, face down. Perhaps he’s a log. Whichever, I’m not going in to retrieve his corpse in this. Hopefully, he left his Winston rod on the bank. I can’t yet find the words I’ll use to tell his widow I’ve retrieved only the Winston, but I have 5 more days solo fishing to work that out – and enjoy the rod.

This, emphatically, is not the armchair fishing I have perfected over winter.  What was I thinking of?

It’s not just the books that have led me astray. I’ve also followed a lackadaisical close-season training routine.  I have occasionally sat in my armchair making perfect, minimalist Snake Rolls and Double Speys with, machismo alert, just my bare hands. Anyone who knows the mesmeric rhythm of Spey casting intuitively does this: Lift, roll and whoosh. Now try a Snake Roll.  Always a perfect cast. We all do this boastful in the bar after fishing and in private as an angle-maniac’s onanism.  Even when refined to the most compact of movements my imaginary rod loads and fires perfectly every time, if a little late in life.

It’s self-delusion of course and, worse, makes me look like an idiot in the eyes of my family.  And, damn the hubris, my indoor training has now dumped me bereft of talent in the maw of a blizzard.

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A break in the weather.

I retreat to the fishing hut and a mug of chicken soup, mercifully hot from the flask. Disappointingly, Charles is alive and already in here. So I won’t be getting his Winston, yet.  But he hasn’t seen or caught anything either, which is good.  Fishing is a brutal zero-sum game. My gain is your loss, and vice versa.

And where’s the gillie? Have we been abandoned? We wonder if a fishing party has ever been found, days later, frozen to death in a fishing hut with snow drifting into the eves. Is there any nutritional value in cork? At that moment the door opens: “Sorry lads, had to move the pickup.  How’s it going?” He looks pink, smug and warm. We exchange suspicious glances.

So whose fault is it that I always arrive bankside with plans-akimbo? Why, I wail into the gale, why didn’t someone tell me?  Well, I already know the answer to that and can name names. I have a rogue’s gallery of culpable bastards whose fishing worlds promise warm, cosy waters stuffed with hard-fighting fish.

So here’s the shortlist: Hunter S Thompson for dazzling my teenage years with aspirational derangement. Plunket Greene for living the dream at the expense of his marriage (no, I can’t).  Farson for showing that there’s no such thing as excess provided writing, fishing and drinking all travel together. The siren Taw Fishing Club for the sexiest fishing website ever. Simon Gawesworth for making Spey casting look ridiculously easy.  The Beatles for staying at a favourite hotel, The Edgewater in Seattle, and fishing from their bedroom windows.  And Led Zeppelin, who went one better and had a live fish in their Edgewater suite.  Although what they did with it is not entirely wholesome and their drug-fuelled orgy might still, even now, have legal repercussions.  Proper rock and roll fishing. So why wasn’t I invited? All bastards.

I could go on. There are many, many more and you may have your own to add (name some; it’s cathartic). In fishing, like politics and childhood, someone else is always to blame.

Finally, I would urge you to heed my favourite definition of fishing: “Getting away from everyone for a few hours to talk about stupid things and act like you’re catching fish.”

So next year I should spend February and March warm and cosy in my den reading stupid things and acting like I’m catching fish. So: Lift, roll and whoosh – then mend and … strike!

But I won’t: How else will I get the Winston?

A print version of this essay can be found in the March edition of the excellent Fly Culture Magazine. For the online North American take, please try this: The Hatch Magazine

 

CASTS IN HOPE

  Hard to believe that three weeks of the 2023 salmon season have passed already. The first few days of the season saw rivers running low and clear with numerous kelt’s tempted by anglers fishing the lower Taw. There were rumoured to be a couple of fresh springers tempted but I have not actually seen any pictures of such fish.

            Heavy spells of rain have brought the Taw and Torridge up and a couple of weeks have seen both rivers virtually unfishable. I set out today for my first visit to the Middle Torridge.

            The river was running higher than ideal but clarity was good with a perfect tinge of colour. If any salmon were present I felt there would be a chance. Salmon are scarce these days and expectation is not as heightened as it once was. Despite this we fish on in hope and drift flies across those old lies where the line has tightened in the past.

After a couple of drifts across the river the line zipped tight and it was good to feel life pulsing through the rod and line. A pleasing brown trout of close to 1lb had siezed the salmon fly.

            Steady rain was falling as I reacquainted myself with the river. It was good to be back once again on the river bank. The yellow splash of colour from primrose and daffodil telling that spring was here. Catkins and pussy willow decorated the riverside trees.

            Pheasants broke cover occasionally startling me as they fled, mallards flew up from the river and buzzards mewed high above the trees.

            All seemed as it should yet I couldn’t help but reflect on the depressing words of the ghillie who spoke of the dying river Wye on the BBCs Country file.   The Wye that borders England was once one of the country’s greatest salmon rivers, today it is dying as a result of pollution and climate change.

            The Taw, Torridge and most South West rivers are suffering a similar fate. It is sad that we could be the last generation to enjoy the privilege of fishing for the Atlantic salmon.

With this in mind I savour each cast hopeful that I might once again connect with that iconic silver bar.

Wistlandpound Club – Wimbleball Results

 

Wistlandpound Fly Fishing Club visited Wimbleball for their March Competition and all members tempted trout from various locations around the reservoir. The trout proved more difficult to tempt than expected possibly as a result of fluctuating temperatures with snow melt a potential factor. Prospects for are excellent for the coming months with large numbers of trout stocked. As Spring slowly settles in fish activity will increase with floating line sport likely on milder calmers days that are surely on the way.

A typical full tailed Wimbleball rainbow

Small dark coloured flies proved successful for me with a black lure on the point and black and green buzzers on droppers. Four of the five trout caught were tempted by the buzzers on the droppers. An intermediate line proved the best option it might have been worth drifting a set of buzzers beneath a floating line with a long leader and a gold head on the point.

I addition to hard fighting rainbows several wild browns were tempted with Colin Combe returning three fish to just over 1lb.

The winning bag of five rainbows.

 

March 12th – Wimbleball Result

1st Wayne Thomas 5 – 9lb 1oz

2nd – Andre Muxworthy – 3 – 6lb 10oz

3rd David Eldred – 2 – 5lb 8oz

4th Nigel Bird 2 – 4lb 11oz

5th Dave Mock – 2 – 3lb 6oz

6th – Colin Combe – 3 brown trout to 1lb +

From the River Bank

Frosted grass as I walked to the river, stark trees and the river running a steely cold blue green.

The Fly was swung across familiar lies the line drew tight and it felt good to feel a fish throbbing with life on the line. No silver bar but a pleasing out of season wild brownie of perhaps a pound.

A skein of geese flew over their calls drifting through the cold March morning air. It was good to be out by the river; though I do look forward to those warmer days when the sand martins will be swooping low over the water.

On arriving back at the car, I met a fellow angler arriving to fish. We chatted and he told me he would have got here earlier but his wife was working and he had to walk the dog. I quipped that walking the dog was better than working. “Not so good as fishing though”  came his swift reply.

Whilst relishing the joy of fishing the river I will mention that it is well worth tuning onto BBC 2 on Sunday night at 8:00pm when Paul Whitehouse is presenting a documentary about the state of our river’s.

Paul Whitehouse travels through the north of England, looking at the impact water companies have on its rivers.

Our Troubled Rivers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jw6x

Paul explores the change in the water industry since privatisation in 1989 and what regulations are in place when it comes to sewage discharge into rivers. He meets concerned locals in Yorkshire looking to highlight the health of the River Wharfe, a conservationist who warns of the ecological decline in iconic Lake Windemere, and the man at the front of the battle for the country’s waterways, Feargal Sharkey.

 

 

2023 SOUTH WEST FLY FAIR – REPORT

The 2023 South West Fly Fair was held at Roadford Lake on February, 26th. This has become a very popular event in the West Country Fly Fishers diary heralding the onset of Spring fishing.

The format of the day allows plenty of time for social interaction with anglers from across the South West and beyond converging at the conference centre. There was a range of expert anglers at hand to offer advice on tackle, tactics, fly casting and fly tying.

There were numerous stalls with both new and second hand tackle, a vast array of flies and fly tying materials along with details of where to fish. Representatives from numerous angling club’s associations and trusts were in attendance.

Thanks must go to South West Lakes Trusts head of Angling Ashley Bunning and Dil Singh technical lead for game fishing who organised the event with their dedicated team. The event was opened by the familiar fair’s patron Charles Jardine. The fairs main sponsor was Chevron Hackles.

South West Lakes Trusts head of Angling Ashley Bunning( Right) and Dil Singh technical lead for game fishing

As always Charles Jardine’s enthusiasm for fly fishing was very apparent and was this year bolstered by the company of angling writer Peter Cockwill. Charles and Peter both highly respected fly fishing practitioners who have witnessed a huge amount of change in the fly fishing world and have remained at the fore front for several decades.

Charles and Peter are joining forces on June 21st at Syon Park to “ Cast A Marathon”. Twenty six miles of casting using a mix of Orvis 4,6 and 8 weights to raise funds for https://www.fishingforschools.co.uk and Castaway and to promote their love of Fly Fishing. Full details to follow.

Charles Jardine and Peter Cockwill

On arriving at the lakeside venue, it was immediately apparent that the lake is still barely half full following last seasons disastrous drought. This was undoubtedly a widely discussed issue amongst anglers as they debated last season and the coming months. Colliford in Cornwall is apparently even lower prompting the alarming question what if we get another summer of drought? Let’s hope it’s a more traditional British summer with a few downpours to keep the lakes topped up and the rivers flowing.

The experts , Charles Jardine, Snowbee’s Simon Kidd and Gary Champion delivered fine casting demonstrations with impressive flexing of rods and swirling of lines that all looked so simple in their hands despite the chill brisk North East Wind.

( Above) Charles casts his magic

 

Gary Champion explaing the art of fly casting

Snowbee’s Simon Kidd

The fly tying fraternity created many flies and lures to tempt the most discerning of anglers. Talks were delivered with humour and wisdom with plenty of audience participation.

The trade stands and expertise are an integral part of the show but above all it is the angling community that is at the heart of this event. Each year friendships are rekindled and plans made for the coming year. I’m sure its not just me who discusses plans for the season to then find that time and life intervene as for any keen angler will testify there is so much water and little time.

Topping up the tackle – Homeleigh Garden Centre – Angling Department – 

A cheerful smile from John Aplin of Casterbridge Fisheries LTD

Put a couple of hundred anglers together for a day and there will be a huge amount of discussion. That great angling writer H.T. Sheringham penned several classic books in the early part of the last century  the titles of which would cover many of the debates undertaken. Trout Fishing Memories and Morals, Elements of Angling and perhaps more appropriate “Fishing its Cause Treatment and Cure”.

Debate about tactics and morals have raged within angling for centuries. When does an artificial bait become a fly? Is Upstream dry fly fishing superior to upstream nymph. Is the use of an indicator akin to float fishing? Are wild trout more worthy than stocked? What of the future of fishing? Cane, carbon or fibre glass? Is social media toxic or is it the anglers that post upon it? Is competitive angling good or does it bring out the worst in people?

I joined a discussion with well-known West Country Fluff chucker Rodney Wevil debating on how to catch mullet on the fly. Are they the most difficult fish to tempt? Despite considerable success with the species Rodney believes they are indeed among the most challenging of fish.

Talk of Fly Fishing and twenty years ago most would have thought of trout or salmon. Today fly fishing enthusiast’s target a very wide range of species in both salt and freshwater. Predatory fish such as pike have become top targets as have carp. The tactics used to tempt these species open up an entire new spectrum for anglers to debate.

Rodney Wevill

Another item very high on the agenda is the river environment a topic that is now gathering a far wider audience due in part to the sterling efforts of Feargal Sharkey and the like. As anglers we have a very close affinity with water and are very aware of change.

As waters closer to home suffer from mankind’s actions it is perhaps inevitable that those who can afford seek fish from distant lands. I talked of fishing the richer waters of Norway and Iceland.

I also had a very interesting discussion about the fishing in the Southern Hemisphere. I had seen pictures of adventures with huge seatrout, brown trout and rainbow trout posted by Peter Cockwill.

Peter enlightened me about how these fish have thrived in pristine waters of the Southern hemisphere after being stocked many years ago by us northerners. Waters that had no significant fish populations now have these fish that many think of as wild. They are not of course truly wild but illustrate how mankind can redistribute nature to his own ends. Mankind is undoubtedly decimating the marine ecosystems of the world how nature responds is complex.

         The 2023 Fly Fair was a very enjoyable event that will hopefully run as an annual event for many years. I arrived home late afternoon with a head full of fishy thoughts. In the middle of the night I awoke; discussions of fish populations in our rivers swimming through my mind. A common theme amongst anglers is how it used to be. Each generation has its own bench marks.

Keen to record my thoughts I left a warm bed to compose the following:-

I REMEMBER WHEN

The old guy said,

 

I remember when the salmon poured into the pools,

Packed like sardines you could have walked across their backs, (1983)

 

I remember when some anglers caught one hundred salmon in a  season,  (2003)

 

It’s been a better season we caught forty from the river last year,  (2023)

 

I remember when there were salmon in the river,     (2043)

                                                                                                  

I remember being told there were once salmon in this river,  (2063)

 

(Above) Zoe Latham keen Dartmoor Fly Fisher – With her fish and fly art works

                                                                                                

http://www.bannisterrods.co.uk

 

Invasive Species – 

THE SOUTH WEST FLY FAIR 2023

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As Spring looms fly fishers across the South West are looking forward to a new season. Fly fishing enthusiasts are now targeting a wide range of species in addition to trout and salmon. Pike, carp, bass and grey mullet are among species now fished for using fly fishing tactics. There will be ample chance to seek advice on all of these topics at the various stalls at this year’s fly fair. There will also be plenty of Environmentally focussed associations and groups to spread awareness and increase knowledge.

Blakewell Fishery – Fishing Well

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James Lanfear – Writes
Blakewell is fishing well now, with anglers bagging up on the fine winter stockfish. Such a beautiful lake. My mate had five solid rainbows on the weekend on Montana nymph. There’s buzzers hatching, too, in the milder weather.
I helped Richie sort out the rainbows last week, they’re like silver bullets! Then we came across some browns…stunning!