Its been a busy month or so and yet again I haven’t had much time for write-ups. I have had some time for fishing though which is the important thing!

After the last few sessions of really good top water action I spent some time filling my fly box with newly tied dry flies and emergers and CDC buzzers to make sure I had every angle covered on my next visit. When I got to the lake the conditions looked perfect and very similar to the last few sessions. Trout were rising and cruising around below the surface so on went a similar set up to what I’d been successful with the previous few sessions. I was excited. More top water action with newly tied flies and perfect conditions. I love that feeling of anticipation, that wonder of whats to come, those fish taking flies you can see…

For 3 hours I tried every combination of dry fly, CDC emergers, diawl bachs, buzzers and floating anything to try and tempt those fish but I got nothing. I spent so long flogging away at the same method with no results that by the time I decided to try something different I only had about an hour or so left of daylight. So, I completely changed tactics and put a big heavy black cruncher on to go deep with a buzzer next and a bobs bit on the top to pick up any high cruisers. On my second cast I was very surprised to have the line tugged and a fish take off with the fly, the deep black cruncher. And then I caught another, and another, and another! And over the next hour I caught 7 fish deep down on buzzers including my first brown trout from this lake.

And the moral of this story is… don’t keep slogging away on the same method with no results just because it worked for you the last time. Its really easy to completely change your setup and try something different. You read about it in the magazines all the time – ring the changes – but it’s easy to forget when you have a few hours on the water.