WEFF boat competition at Eyebrook Reservoir 9th  - 10th August 2003

 

Hughie O’Reilly, president, or rather dictator of the West End Fly Fishers decreed we would fish our annual boat competition in August this year. He wasn’t to know that we would be fishing during the hottest weather ever recorded in Britain. This was fishing to sort out the men from the masochists.

 

Eyebrook Reservoir was created in 1942 to provide water to the steelworks in Corby. It also famously provided the Dambusters of 611 squadron with a location to practice for the raids on the dams in Ruhr Valley in Germany.

 

The reservoir sits in the Welland Valley on the Rutland/Leicestershire border surrounded by hills. There are good walks and bridleways in the area.

 

I arrived in Belton-in-Rutland village on Friday night (the 8th) and camped in a local farm site. Richard B was already there with his family. He was to be my boat-partner and had fished the area before. Good to hear, as it was my first trip here.

 

After pitching my tent, I wandered off to the local pub hoping to get a meal. Unfortunately, The Sun Inn had no food on that evening, but the Bates ale was excellent and so was the company, so I stayed. Some interesting characters, including Mick who guides fishing and big game safaris in Africa with a firm called Manzi. The highlight of the evening was an unusual competition. A delightful female clad in jodhpurs and loose blouse invited the chaps to guess her bra size. It was made difficult because she didn’t appear to be wearing one and consequently we all failed miserably, or so she said.

 

Saturday

 

The day started misty, a blessed relief at first, but by 10.30 the sun had burnt it off and we were treated to the full blow-torch treatment.

 

Trout were jumping all over the place and we felt some hope. At least they were there. However, I don’t think they were chasing anything, possibly just clearing their gills or trying to oxygenate the water.

 

Richard fished with a fast sinking line while I covered the floating line option.

Within half an hour, he stopped for a smoke. As he started to retrieve line, he was into a good fish. This was over 3lb and took a black marabou lure with a couple of strands of green crystal flash in the tail.

  Richard's 1st trout

Shortly after, he had another. I switched to an intermediate camo line, which actually sinks faster than my medium sinker and put on a team of olive damsel on point and a sparkler on the dropper. Mark and Cocktail Cabinet were close by and I was chatting to them, leaving the line to sink. I started a slow figure-of-eight retrieve and about 12ft from the surface got a take. This was a nice rainbow of 2lb, 2 ¾ oz. It had taken the sparkler fly.

  My trout

Richard then had another fish which fought hard for five minutes when the fly came out. Mark had a few fish too and Richard wondered if that loss would cost him a place. Cocktail Cabinet was sunbathing. Later on, it all got too much for him and he flopped over the side for a dip.

  Mark fishing hard while Cocktail Cabinet sunbathed

Things went very quiet, no one was catching, so we opted to fish the weedy margins of the opposite shore close to Robbo’s Island.

 

Casting close to a weed mat I soon had a take. It felt like a small fish, but it was a fish. However as it surfaced, I realised it was not a trout. It was a jack pike of around 1lb and they don’t count in the competition. After photographing it, I released it back to the weeds.

  Jack pike on a fly

We had a long fruitless drift back towards the dam. There was so little wind, we barely moved. No need for a drogue this time.

  Steaming back for lunch

Richard noticed an odd looking heron flying towards us out of the sun and pointed it out. As I looked up, I realised it was white. It was the size of a heron and too big to be a Little Egret, so surmised it was a Great White Egret, an infrequent visitor to the UK.

 

There were several boats by the dam, but we managed to slot into our original spot. Later in the day Richard had another fish and we were in a good position to take 1st spot in the competition. It had been a hard day for most of us, several blanking altogether.

 

Fifteen of us got together in The Castle Inn in Caldecott for an evening meal. The food was quite good, and I had an excellent beer, misnamed Pigswill, but service was disorganised and a little grudging.

 

Sunday

 

Today started off with relentless sunshine. I could feel my skin burning within minutes of being on the water, but to our relief, clouds began to build and screen the sunshine by 11am.

 

Richard’s super black marabou fly did it again, taking another fish. Then we saw Hughie take and lose a fish. He had another two fish which came off, before landing another. All were taken on a booby fished deep.

 

I tried all my lines from a floater, clear intermediate, medium sinker and fast sinker with teams of three to four flies using buzzers, bloodworm, damsels, pheasant tail nymphs, snail patterns, orange fritz, black lures, minkies, boobies and floating fry. Would they have them? No, they only had eyes for Richard’s black marabou lure with its two strands of crystal flash.

 

Then it got hard again and no one was catching anywhere. Again, we motored off to the opposite shore. By now, a good wind was whipping up the waves and it looked worth while drifting along the wind lanes. We had the drogue out, but the wind just got stronger and we were practically wind-surfing along the drift.

 

My mobile went off half way through the drift. It was Bob asking if we wanted lunch. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but we were both a bit despondent and felt the break would do us some good.

Peter turned up with his wife and brought along a vast barbecue picnic lunch with wine and Pimms. Very civilised.

 

Refreshed, we returned for another go at the trout. This time I was confident of catching again. I fished a team of buzzers under a Grey Wulff and watched it intently for any sign of movement. Grey clouds gathered behind and a few heavy drops of rain splattered us, but not one fish looked at my set up.

 

Eventually, Richard got a take and was into another fish which he landed. We were just in the lead at lunchtime and it would be a close finish. We knew Hughie and his partner Joe were close behind us, but didn’t know how that dark horse Neil was getting on. He’d taken a fish just under 4lbs yesterday and might slip into a last minute lead as he did twice last year.

 

Hughie and I were reduced to stripping lures in the last half hour using the roly-poly retrieve, but were to be disappointed.

 

At 5pm, we packed up as a big thunderstorm began to cover the reservoir.

The weigh-in took a while and then Bob and Neil came in with four fish. It was close, but Richard and I retained our first day lead, Neil and Bob were second and Hughie and Joe were third.

 

Richard also won the individual prize and Neil had the biggest fish.

 

Although the fishing was hard, the conditions were not easy and the fish were not really feeding. We spooned all of ours and they were all empty except for one which was stuffed with snails.

 

The reservoir was well stocked and well managed. Fly fishing is the only water sport allowed and it is a tranquil location. I think the club will be going back in the next few weeks.