Had a killer couple of days and needed to get away from work-related bumph for a few hours tonight. Summer seems to have arrived (typically on the days I have back to back night work!)
Anyway went up to good old Pendriech for a couple of hours on what’s been the nicest and warmest evening of the year so far. Being such a nice night it was pretty busy as you would expect, but it was evident that people were not catching at all. In fact looking at the catch book, later on, there were very few caught these last few days.
It’s my experience that the fishing has turned right off since it was stocked a few weeks back- something of a disappointment. Up to tonight, I had caught one fish in three visits- when I was averaging over two per visit in the early season.
On a night like this you just have to try the dry fly and I went up the east end- facing into the wind, not too strong, but annoying none the less. I would have been better with the HM3 in these conditions but I like to use the much softer Dicksons rod up here when I can- you get more sport from the fish on the softer rod.
Casting into the wind was almost impossible but I was able to wade out and cast across the wind parallel to the weedy bank. I used an Olive Klinkhammer style fly and though no fish were showing, about 4-5 casts in it was snaffled by a really nice 1 pound fish. Its always a pain to net fish here in the weeds but I managed to hand line it in once it was close enough and safely unhook it.
The wind got up so I moved on round the Southside, and fished right down here- there were more fish showing here as the night progressed but despite trying a few flies not much was happening. I managed to get a rise to a CDC emerger pattern but I managed to miss it as in typical fashion it rose to it as I lost concentration and was thinking to myself time for a change! I tried a deer hair olive dun pattern and a Hawthorne fly, there were a few about tonight, but no takers to either, but fish were about in places, just not being fooled.
As my time ran out I went up to the dam to talk to some other anglers and get the goss. No one was catching here but there were fish rising. I could not resist a cast and tried a small black klink but no joy- the fish though were regularly swirling at something on or just below the surface and there were loads of midges about…. hmm. On went a tiny size 20 shit fly in black, first cast over a close in fish got no takers but targetting rises, I eventually got a fish to take and what a scrap it gave me. Once I got it close enough in I realised with the weight ,a good pound and a quarter, that lifting it from the water up over the wall was not an option with this rod- it would probably snap, and I could not get the net that near- also not helped as it became evident the hook had slipped the trout’s mouth and was now in the tail- hence the fight!
I managed to lift it onto the net using the line, and the hook slipped out the tail easily being only a barbless size 20. It was a bit of a traumatic fight for the fish but it was a nice one and I was happy to return it- though it took a bit of reviving at the weedy area to the side of the dam wall- it eventually swam off, hopefully none the worse!.
