It’s been a blowy couple of days and really fly fishing at my usual haunts has been knocked out due to the direction and intensity of this Easterly wind. However it usually drops of an evening and I was “encouraged” by my better half to go out for a couple of hours last night up to my local fishery, Swanswater. The two bottom ponds are pretty sheltered from the wind so should be fishable.
Off I trotted for a couple of hours, the 7 to 9 shift on the wee ponds. The Meadow Pond was quiet when I arrived so I tackled up and put an emerger on to go for the rising fish. Before I even wet a line three or four other anglers came over , but I had already bagged my favourite spot albeit rather shady so quite cold, in the evening sun.
I must have tried 15 or 20 patterns in the two-hour session, I tried conventional Klinkhammers in varying colours, I tried CDC Klinks, I tried microscopic CDC shuttlecock buzzers, floating foam buzzers, nymphs and I hate to admit a bunny leach. Knocks, boils, tugs, circling, splashing- everything but a solid take!
If you were a beginner and had this sort of night you would quit!…… and it wasn’t just me, the other guys were much the same, in fact I would say on the whole I had the most activity. I saw three guys lose fish that looked on, and only when into “extra time”; Alastair the owner took pity on our pathetic plight and let us fish on a bit as it was so hard, did the guy next to me catch two in quick succession on a Nomad lure. During this time I had tug after tug but no takes on the Bunny leach. I blanked- the humiliation!
Still beats watching the Saturday night telly!
