After bragging about how good my new local trout water has been fishing for the last few months I finally got the chance to get Beardy Neil out on the water for an evening session. It was warm, sunny and a bit breezy but almost perfect conditions for an evening session. Fish were rising, jumping and cruising the margins so there was plenty of activity on the water and it didn’t disappoint.
The lake had been stocked with rainbow, brown and blue trout a few weeks before and the blue trout could clearly been seen cruising just below the surface, their bodies almost glowing in the water. The colour of these fish in the water really is the most electric blue colour.
From previous visits I knew that black quill buzzers with a red butt usually worked well so this time I decided to go for a few different flies. While I was messing around with my fly box Beardy Neil caught his first fish within 20 mins. I’d had a few missed takes but nothing positive so stuck a black quill buzzer on the dropper and something different on the point. It wasn’t long before the buzzer had done its trick and caught me my first fish.
After catching a few on the buzzer I decided to go for some of the frequently rising fish we were seeing and so tried a few dry buzzer patterns without much luck. Then Beardy Neil went a caught a beauty on a black and red hawthorn. It really does seem like the black and red combination works very well here at this time of year. Spurned on by this little nugget of top of the water action I tried a few different dry flies without much success. The fish were clearly taking something from the top but it wasn’t anything we were giving them.
We moved around to a different side of the lake and while Beardy Neil persevered with the top of the water fish nearly taking one to a Klimkhammer, I decided to try something completely different. There were damsel flies around and it was definitely the time of year for a lot of the nymphs to be in the water so I put a small damsel with big eyes on the point and kept the buzzer on the dropper. After another fish to the buzzer I cast out again and started pulling the damsel a little quicker just below the surface as there were still fish up in the water. As soon as I started pulling I saw a silver flash appear about 10/15 feet away to the left of my fly and a large torpedo of silvery blue starting speeding directly towards the end of my line. I’ve never had a fish take a fly like this before. It saw it and wanted it instantly and nothing was going to stop it. It sped towards the fly at top speed creating a huge bow-wave, grabbed the damsel fly and just kept on going, and going and going! I was quite a way out to begin with and it took another good 10 metres of line of the reel before it slowed down. What a take! It took a good 5 mins to bring in this 6lb blue trout and what a fighter. It’s my best fish of the year and one I won’t forget in a while. I’m sure Beardy Neil is sick of me talking about it already! ;o)
General conditions – Sunny with a few clouds and a stiff breeze
Wind direction – Easterly
Flies that worked – Black red butt quill buzzers, damsels with eyes, black and red hawthorn/hopper