The next couple of weeks sees me down here in Bristol for work related training and I like to try get out for a wee spot of fishing if I can and I have the time. It all depends on the weather too and after todays course ended it was looking quite pleasant if a little on the windy side, but I felt it was worth the somewhat slow drive up to Bristol Barrows. I would love to be able to get out on Chew Valley or Blagdon but neither are particularly easy for the late evening angler to get to and make sense financially with the cost of permits, boats etc so the Barrows it is. you simply turn up and pay at the honesty box.
I see there was a warning sign that there might be a spot of Blue Green algae but the wind, and I suspect recent rain meant that the water was a little cloudier than usual by my experience, but also a lot less weedy than I have ever seen up there and no sign of BG algae which I have seen there before too. With the somewhat stiff breeze, providing I got into a spot that was in sympathy with the wind ie blowing off my left shoulder, the conditions while a little bright seemed ideal. The water was not especially warm either so all good.
The “hidden” corner sheltered from the wind and quite a few fish moving in this area
I thought I was in for a bumper night when on my second cast I felt a good take and was into a rainbow of about a pound and a half. It put up a right dogged fight and as they are apt to do it went down to the bottom to try snag me on the weed which it successfully managed to do. However I have learned from numerous breakages on previous visits not to fish too light and I was using 8lb Flurocarbon and was able to apply enough pressure to release the fish with a huge lump of weed. As got the fish in towards the side, it actually looked like it might have got off the hook but was pretty fouled up in the line and weed and I ended up grabbing the leader lest I end up with a load of nasty weed jammed up in my rod rings. I handlined the fish in and as it came to hand I managed to sort of roll the fish out the line and it was away. I think it had managed to lose the hook but was basically tangled until I got it in. It seemed to have taken the point fly a wee Cat bug leggy buzzer type pattern. Still a good start and I hoped the first of many. Funnily enough at this exact same spot a few years back I started well one evening and had 4 fish in rapid succession on a windy but somewhat greyer conditions.
A nice evening to be out and Barrow number 2 I had entirely to myself
However it wasn’t to be. Over the rest of the evening I reckon I seen at most 4 fish move, two well out beyond casting range, and got through comfortably twenty odd flies. Wets, Buzzers and blobs and boobies. Not a touch. I had the entire reservoir to myself though really only the bank I was on, was fishable with the wind and I fished down half that side with each method then returned to the start to try another, covering a good 40-50 yards of bank and the 30 yards in front of me- thats 1500 square yards of water and not a fish did I locate. As the sun started to disappear I decided to put on a CDC emerger pattern with two small buzzers and this time work my way down the entire bank which is easily a good 120 yards long. So off I went stopping only to move my net down the bank every twenty yards or so. As I got towards the bottom end I noticed a feature I had never been aware of previously, basically the reservoir sort of turns in to a sheltered corner thats not really visible from along that side. It was then that I spotted a fish move very close in to the edge and it was clearly having a go at some Sedge which were all over the water near this sheltered spot. I had no hesitation in clipping off the three flies and replacing it with a CDC and deer hair sedge pattern and as the sun set, my luck finally turned.
One of the three fish of around a pound all identical and all on Sedges
Another Rainbow takes the Sedge
As long as you cast onto where a fish had risen, within a second or two of the rise, your fly was taken. Casting to where a fish had been say 5 or more seconds after and you never got a touch, but put the fly on the spot pretty much right away and they were taking with zero hesitation. I brought three fish to the net in fairly quick succession and missed a fourth in rapidly fading light. My wee sedge pattern was looking pretty bedraggled and the CDC was falling to bits but it did not seem to stop the fish taking it as long as it floated. None of the fish were huge, all Rainbows of about a pound each and like peas in a pod, but it made for good fun watching for a rise I could reach and them swirling to take the fly. I was actually thinking how few fish I had had on dries this season then had a great wee spell of dry fly sport there and then. Beats sitting looking at the four walls of a hotel room.
