The signs at the Number 3 car park
I was down to Bristol on Monday for work and took my travel 6 piece rod, my reel and a few lines, and a wee box of flies in the off-chance I had some time for a few hours somewhere. The easiest, cheapest option down there are the Bristol Barrows reservoirs affectionately known as the “tanks”. Last time I fished there was a few years ago and number 3 was out of service for maintenance. I haven’t fished three, that much as it is a bit tricky to access being surrounded as it is by a wall about 4 or 5 feet high. It’s fine for casting but if you catch a fish you need to be able to get it up that height to land it. This in turn requires a long-handled net and my old net I take down there while a reasonable length isn’t really that suitable. There is a slipway/ramp at the road end that allows easy access but when I arrived there was an old gent already set up and fishing there.
Not the clearest image but earlier on the quantities of Damsels was astonishing
There were a couple of chaps who had just started ahead of me though nearby so I rather cheekily maybe decided to fish near at hand in the hope if I did catch something they might offer to help with their longer nets! The weather was very warm and there is quite a bit weed round the fringes of the reservoir but not the blue/green slimy stuff they often get this time of year, so maybe it’s not quite got that far on yet. THe two other anglers told me some big brownies had been coming out number 3 recently. The margins were teeming with blue damsel flies, in fact I have never seen so many. If you left your line to hand down they would start attaching themselves to it stacking up vertically.
I set up with a couple of buzzers under a dry, and fished like this for 15 minutes until my flies snagged on some of the very robust weed, and I broke the leader right above the top fly trying to free it off. I decided to change to a straight through 8 lb three fly cast with three buzzers straight lining after this and never had any further snags. I stopped to take a picture at one point and as I resumed my retrieve there was a very hard pair of headshakes on my line but it never stuck. It looked like the fish wanted the flies static and deep as possible.
My only catch, a we Perch took a Buzzer- so not a blank then!
A wee while later I had an altogether lesser knock and this time it was a wee pugnacious Perch on the buzzer.
I had fished the shady corner right round by now and so decided to move up to Number 2 as nothing was happening here. The other two anglers had a similar idea as they were heading back towards me just as I turned to cross the busy road to the other reservoirs.
They then appeared having driven to the other car park, over at number 1.
They told me they hadn’t had a touch either. I fished on and about 20:00 the cloud came over a bit and a bit of a breeze got up, I was fishing the point between Number 2 and Number 1 on the Number 2 side, and a few fish had been showing but well beyond casting range. At least beyond range for the rod I was using and with the restricted space you have behind you on the back cast here. Also this reservoir being more of a concrete bowl has deep and significant fringing weed, so any flies fishing deeper than maybe 2 or 3 feet constantly pick it up. For this reason I fished a sink tip with a booby on point and varied buzzers, nymphs and crunchers on the droppers, washing line style. I never got a touch, this has been successful as a method for me before. Around then lots of other anglers started to arrive, up tho this point I was on my own here. They all set up along the same bank as me so I was clearly in the right place by the look of things. The sedge then started to appear, and boy were they in abundance. I have never seen so many in my fishing time. There were thousands of them. Surely they would bring the fish to life. But alas ( despite changing to a floater again with a dry sedge, few fish showed and around 2130 the newly arrived anglers started to drift away! It wasn’t happening, a few said. Clearly there was some sort of regular frenzy around 20:00-21:30, but not tonight.
There were ridiculous numbers of Sedge coming off later on in the evening though it was a flat calm.
I grew a bit weary of casting for nothing and decided to head back towards the car and number 3 again for a last 20 minutes. Over there the old gent who had fished the ramp was just leaving. “Hopeless” he said, “two nights ago I was getting fish after fish, had loads, tonight nothing, not even a touch”.
Looked like I got my timing wrong again!
