I last fished Hanningfield about 4-5 years ago with Colin. As we motored the boat past the fish cages, someone was landing a big fat carp. As we got closer, we realised our mistake. It wasn’t a pond-pig, it was the then new record stocked rainbow trout at just over 8.55kg (19lbs).

We both hooked a fish there and lost them. A few mayflies were about, but the trout rising to them and we went home fishless.

This time, I fished with Walter and arrived at the lodge at 7.30am. The boats are available from 8am. There is a decent café with plenty of scope for a fry up before fishing. Table service too, would you believe?

There was a bit of a chop on the water and the wind still had a keen edge to it, but was not so cold or strong as previous days.

Walter asked the rather taciturn looking bailiff, which flies to use and he replied, "Just get your flies in the water." When pressed on which flies, he replied in an irritated manner, "It don’t matter, they’ll throw themselves at them."

Our initial plan was to keep to the right of the cages, about 150 metres from the natural bank. I thought Cats Whisker flies would do well or Vivas and tied up a few before coming out. I gave Walter one of the Cats Whiskers to try out. I dug out my reels and selected the fast sinker line. To my amazement, the braid loop connection was missing. I didn’t fancy tying a knot directly to 6lb fluorocarbon leader, so abandoned that line and switched to the floater.

This floater does a good imitation of an intermediate line. You need to smother it in goose fat to get it to stay floating.

In the meantime, Walter connected on his third cast and had a hard fighting rainbow of around 2.5lb. I got going then and on my third cast hooked a fish which promptly leapt out of the water with my fly firmly in it’s scissors. Unfortunately, the fly was no longer attached to my leader, it had snapped at the dropper knot. I used a two turn water knot, so tried three turns after that. Flourocarbon does need knotting carefully, but is excellent stuff otherwise.

Walter was soon into another fish as I tied on another Cats Whisker variant with a yellow head. I flogged away for 30 minutes with that and was about to change fly, when I got a solid take. This fish stayed on and so did the fly, catching my next three fish soon after we moved closer to the natural bank.

The wind was blowing into the corner by the fishing lodge. A long earthen extension known as the Mole leaves the shore at a right angle and forms a barrier to fish cruising along the natural bank. Here we must have located a shoal as we caught consistently. The fish were mainly between 2.5 to 4lb.

As things got quiet, we lifted anchor and drifted nearer the Mole, 10 metres at a time and one of us caught 1^st cast each time we moved.

The next two incidents are the sort, which can lose you an old friend. Walter hooked a nice fish which looked over 3 lb and had a long fight before getting it to the net, Twice, it shied away and bored away into the depths, before being brought back a third time. I almost had it in the net when it turned sharply away again. This time, a dropper fly caught in the net and the fish and Walter parted company. Worse was to follow.

He was soon into another fish, which fought hard, as they all did. Moments later, I connected with another trout and it zipped about all over the place. Soon after, Walter landed his fish and my line went slack. I looked at his fish; very strange, what was my fly doing in it’s mouth? Then the awful truth dawned. My line had sliced through his and caught on one of his droppers, so we both ended up playing the same fish.

The yellow headed Cats Whisker stopped catching after that, so Walter gave me a polystickle type pattern. It proved very effective, until I lost it later on.

Around 11.30am I got a smash take on the polystickle fly, which bent my rod into the water. The three-turn water knot coped with that OK. This fish was a bit different from the others. I couldn’t do much with it and it towed the boat in circles for over 10 minutes before it finally surfaced. After 15 minutes, I finally netted it. It was a hefty 2.7kg (6lb).

6lb fighting rainbow.

We caught our limit of 6 fish each before midday. We were told when we paid for our tickets that catch and release was being allowed for the day, so we continued.

I wanted to experiment with other methods, so we moved over to the far side of the water in a quiet corner, sheltered from any wind and I tried buzzers and boobies. After half an hour of that getting nowhere, I resumed lure fishing. Walter had a couple of fish while I was experimenting and I wasn't happy sitting and waiting for nothing.

All the bank anglers were catching while we were there and doing well.

We next moved out another 100 metres to where the water had a bit of ripple to it and drifted for a while. We passed another boat where one old boy was casting like a wood chopper. They reckoned there was a shelf in front of them. Keeping our distance, we anchored up there and both immediately connected with a couple of fish.

Even the wood-chopper caught one then. After that, the shoal passed on and we motored over to the cages. Walter wanted to try for a big fish deep down. I had no choice but to fish near the surface with leaded flies.

Shortly after we moored up to a buoy, I got a hefty take and a smallish rainbow shot out of the water and just missed landing in the boat. Pity, it had my fly clearly lodged in it's scissors, but it had broken the leader.

The fly was a home tied creation. The body was of lead wire, covered in floss and then wrapped in a thin layer of luminous sinking putty. The putty is then coated in epoxy resin. With a white marabou wing and tail it has been a successful fly for me. I'll just have to tie another or two.

I tied on a Montana and got another fish a couple of minutes later. Meantime, Walter's deep fishing tactics paid off when he got a big tug and struck into a good fish.

This surprised us both by leaping clear of the water and fighting like a sea-trout for a while. After a fight of over 7 minutes, Walter was able to pull it over the net and landed a fit 3.6kg (8lb) Hanningfield rainbow.

Walter and a fit, hard fighting 8 pound rainbow.

We ended the day drifting back towards the lodge catching a couple of small trout including one of .34kg (3/4 lb).

Our final tally, including released fish was 11 to me and 15 to Walter.

Walter’s tally of six fish was 5 fish for 19 lbs plus the 8lb fish. Mine was 5 fish for 17 lbs plus the 6 lb.

Walter's final tally.

Not a bad days work at the office!

We'll have to do it again sometime.