Ravensthorpe Reservoir, Northampton – 18 May 2003

 The forecast said heavy showers and high winds in the afternoon, but we still went. The odds of the weather gurus getting it right are slim at the best of times.

 Ravensthorpe was built in Victorian times and is England’s oldest stillwater fishery. It is 100 acres set in pretty rolling countryside and fairly sheltered. There is bank fishing and a fleet of 15 motorboats. The fishery also allows float tubes and has some for hire, I believe. 

This was a club day and there were about 20 members of the WEFF (West End Fly Fishers) fishing bank, boat and even float tube. I opted for a two fish limit with the option of catch and release after.

 Teaming up with Geoff in one of the boats, we initially headed for a tiny island. The wind was quite strong there and although we anchored up, we found ourselves dragging the anchor in minutes.

 Deciding we were not going to do much there, we aimed for the opposite bank in the direction of the wind. I know you are supposed to head for the bank the wind is driving the food onto, but I don’t always find that to be productive.

 Firstly, there were numerous swifts and swallows skimming the surface close to the windward bank taking newly hatched midges and that bank was lined with willows and shrubbery, no doubt with insects being blown off them onto the water.

 Covering both options, I tied a black hopper on the top dropper, an olive buzzer on the middle dropper and a gold-head black buzzer on the point fished statically on a floating line. That’s a euphemism, as with the wind gusting from several directions and the boat yawing around the anchor point, I doubt the flies were static.

 We had a few laughs during the day about the fact that the trout never seem to read the rules. One example of this occurred when I stripped back my line to change flies. There was a huge wake on the surface as a big rainbow chased my black buzzer. Since when did buzzers water-ski across the surface at the speed of a supersonic blob fly?

 On the end of my line I tied a leader of 4.8 metres (16 ft) of 3.6kg (8lb) fluorocarbon. I find the droppers don’t snap off as they sometimes do with 6lb or lower specification fluorocarbon. The lower refraction index of fluorocarbon seems to offset any disadvantage of using the thicker leader material. 

Geoff went for buzzers and a diawl bach and within a short time, he was into a fish while I messed about undoing a tangle. The tangle got worse while he played his fish. He duly landed a good 1.125kg (2 ½ lb) rainbow, while I clipped off my flies and undid the mess.

 Around 12.30pm, I felt a take and struck, but felt the fly come out of a fish. I cast again in the same position and some three minutes later hooked what felt like a small fish. There was very little resistance and it just seemed to be swimming along unperturbed. It was a couple for minutes before it realised it was hooked and for me to realise it might not be so small after all. 

Then I thought it was a brown trout. It bored hard down and we did not see it for 10 minutes. Then Geoff spotted a couple of glimpses of silver and minutes later it surfaced. It was a fit resident rainbow with a tail like a spade and in no hurry to give up. It circled the boat and then repeatedly dived under it. After a hard 15 minute fight Geoff managed to get the net under it, a superb fish of 1.69kg (3 ¾ lb). There was a faint, well-healed scar from a cormorant attack, but was otherwise perfect.

1st Ravensthorpe rainbow

 It was spooned and revealed it was feeding on large 13 mm (half inch) black buzzers with greenish-gold spherical heads and tail segments with silvery ribbing, just like my gold-head buzzer. No need to change fly then.

 Well, an hour passed and nothing more disturbed our flies and my mind drifted onto other things. It was time for a leak, so I duly undid my waterproofs, stuck the rod between my calves and moistened the bucket.

 Suddenly my mobile phone went off. It was a text message from a friend wanting to know how I was and was I catching anything. In perverse mood, I replied “Bog off, I’m busy.” Just as I was about to replace my wedding tackle, the bloody phone went off again. It was the friend replying “OK.”

 Then things became bizarre. Line started shooting out of the rod rings and I grabbed rod and line and struck. Whatever it was, it had dropped the fly. I remembered to do mine up and swore a little. No, I really was quite restrained.

 With no more takes, Geoff and I motored up to the lane end and tried our luck there. At first it was nicely sheltered, but it wasn’t long before the wind found us and gave us a hard time. There was little sign of fish and the swifts were nowhere to be seen, so we returned close to our original spot, but about 50 metres from the shore. 

Here, the swifts were skimming the surface in numbers and I started getting takes and touches. I don’t know if I was striking too soon or too late, but I could feel something on the end of the line before it went slack. Now and again, we would see big fish chasing nymphs on the surface, but we always seemed to be sorting out tangles when it happened.

 The wind was gusting harder, but we persevered. I changed my middle dropper to a holographic green-black buzzer and the top dropper to a red wulff. The red wulff would float well in the choppy water and help keep the flies at a given level.

 Around 5.30pm and first cast with the new team, I had a solid take. This fish felt big and it knew it was in trouble. It came up fairly quickly though and swam back and forth beyond the bows for a while. However, it came to the net after 5 minutes. This was a bigger fish, but only just. It weighed 1.8kg (4lb), and was clearly a fairly recently released fish, but like the other was stuffed with buzzers.

A fine brace

 The wind was getting colder and takes dried up. Around 6.30pm we decided to head back and none too soon, as torrential rain swept the reservoir.  

Back at the lodge, we met up with the others. Several had caught fish. Someone had a another full-tailed fighter over 2.25kg (5lbs), Mark had taken a hefty 4.05kg (9lb) rainbow from one of the float tubes and some other good sized fish were taken. I believe the stock size goes from 1kg to 7kg and around 30,000 fish are stocked annually. A day ticket with a two fish limit and a motor boat set us back £27.00 each.

 Ravensthorpe is a pretty place to fish and has abundant fly life from what I could see. The weather was not good on the day, but I think it would be a great dry fly water in quieter conditions.