Frensham Fishery - 15^th August 2002

The Norwegians have a saying, "There is no such thing as the wrong weather, just the wrong clothes." That works fine in Norway where the weather can be depended on to be lousy almost all of the time. That thinking just can't be applied to the UK. You can depend on the British weather to be fickle, so you need a whole wardrobe ranging from shorts to a fleece and full set of waterproofs to be sure you have the right clothes for a normal summers day.

Today was the exception. It was going to be hot and if it did rain, it would be a relief to get wet.

I didn't even attempt to bring anything more than shorts and T-shirt.

We stopped off again at the Mariners Hotel for breakfast. It is on the A287 near Churt. To be perfectly honest, the main reason was to experience the welcome from mein host again. We were disappointed to find he was not there at first, but he arrived in time to take our money with his cheerless Basil Fawlty impersonation. It made our day.

There were quite a few anglers at the fishery, but most of these were youngsters getting fly casting lessons from the Orvis instructors. There was plenty of room though, so Colin and I got on with it.

There were plainly a lot of fish about, but in the heat they seemed very lethargic. We were surprised to see quite a few following our flies, but they were very fussy. Many would almost mouth the fly and then turn abruptly away, obviously seeing a fake or the leader.

We both tried dry flies and were getting more rejections than Saddam Hussein at the UN. Time for a re-think. I switched from 6lb to 4lb line, but still they were shying away. Actually, even though I was using a flourocarbon leader, I could see it easily under the water with polaroids on.

I then thought I'd give the New Zealand method a try. This involves tying on a floating fly with a sinking fly tied to the hook bend of the floating fly. I used about 30cm (1ft) of leader to suspend a buzzer beneath a Red Wulff and cast them into a cruising lane used by the trout.

Around 10.30am I had my first trout on. It saw the buzzer and purposefully went for it. I struck as soon as I saw its jaws close and landed it soon after. It was a lean looking fish and had only a little fight in it.

Colin came over soon after and witnessed another take, which I missed. I had too much slack in the line and we could see it opening and closing its jaws several times to eject the fly before I could recover enough line to strike effectively.

Soon after, I cast to a moving fish. My aim was not quite perfect. The fly landed 20cm behind the trout's head, but like a flash it turned and snapped it up. I landed that after a spirited fight. It was about .67kg (1 1/2lb) like the first fish.

A fighter

Just about 12.30pm, Handsome Hugh, Bob and Fighting Jack arrived. Hughie's first priority was to get one of the fishery's barbecues going and start lunch.

It turned really hot and the fish looked totally disinterested in most of the flies cast to them, so I wandered over to the BBQ and watched Hughie cook a hill of meat for Desperate Dan and his chums. Actually, that was us, but the human tape-worm (me) gave up the struggle to consume all in its path years ago, consequently we made little impact on the feast.

A real lazy summer's day fishing

Back at the lake, Colin witnessed a mink swimming in the margins opposite. Even that failed to get the trout excited, but I did briefly hook one on a damsel nymph.

Cloud gave some respite from the sun again and I tried to stimulate some interest by pulling back a small red pheasant tail nymph in jerky movements. It provoked an instant response as two fish tried to beat each other to it. The first missed, but the second swallowed it with no mistake. It really was not a happy bunny and showed it, but it ended up in the net anyway. This was the same size as the others.

As often happens, this only worked once and the fly was ignored after that.

Hughie caught a fish mid afternoon and someone else had a couple in the top of the lake on dries.

Hughie demonstrating a fine technique

Colin and the others all had a frustrating time watching fish follow and reject everything they presented to them.

Watching the trout moving along a set route I waited and cast to a moving fish, dropping a small damsel nymph ahead of it and twitching it back in a slowish figure of eight retrieve. The fish investigated and took without hesitation. This was a good fish and put up a spirited fight. It weighed 1.2kg (2 3/4 lbs).

A fine rainbow, but Andy Wren reckons the hat is no fashion statement. Hmmm, he may have a point.

It seemed as though casting to static fish was a waste of time and the moving fish were feeding more freely. Maybe that was all it was, they were feeding and on the lookout for food. Then again, they may have been more off-guard. Anyway, its no good following my advice, as the next time they will be singing from a different hymn sheet and feeding exclusively on Snot-Gobblers or tuttie-fruity boilies .