Well undeterred Gavin and I decided to give it a go. When we got there we found a completely different fishery from our first perception. They have a quaint little tackle shop there, stocking the basics such as flies and tippet material and a very warm welcome. The weather had been awful for the last few weeks with heavy snow (be careful driving over the snake pass when it’s snowing) and exceptional cold fronts. The inside of the boats where heavily iced but in good condition and we also hired an out board engine which was a little ropey. It had two speeds, on or off. The bailiff seemed very knowledgeable regarding recent catches and advised us to fish about eight feet down with anything orange.
Gavin started with a DI 5 sinking line with me on a slime line puling lures due to the cold. Gavin had a few knocks on a sparkler which he had as a point fly in open water whereas I did not get a pull. After about 1 hour we decided to get out of the wind as it was bitterly cold and it had started snowing. Steaming to the Dam end of Ladybower we noticed another boat anchored hard against the dam wall that was getting into some fish. Gavin stuck with his team of lures which consisted of an orange blob on the top, standard pheasant’s tail middle dropper and a sparkler on the point. As we where fishing the both the tree lined edges drifting up to and including the dam wall I fished an orange blob top dropper, hot orange thorax pheasant tail nymph middle and a hot orange glow floss headed hares ear. Slowly twitching the flies nearer the boat I was into my first rainbow trout, taken on the hot orange pheasant tail nymph. It gave me a real scrap bending the 10’ 7 weight sage heavily. Once landed the fish itself was nearly fully finned and after spooning had been feeding heavily on both shrimp and louse. The next fish fell to the same tactics. For those who fish there most where holding up near the Dam wall on the LHS as you face the dam from the water about 10 feet away from the tree line.
As was said earlier there is no catch and return on this lake so I decided to take a coffee break otherwise the fishing would be over in an hour. The snow all had by now been reduced to a slow drizzle, the wind had calmed and around the boat with water had become flat calm. All around as though a switch had been flicked little tell tale rings appeared on the surface of the water, a sure sign of a hatch but in the snow. At the beginning of the season trout are ravenous and really the bushier the fly the better. To see if the trout would rise to a fly I put a booby on the point and pulled it hard on the surface still with the slime line. This is a good competition ploy and is called booby popping. I will go into this technique a bit more in a later article. A fish rose and followed but didn’t take. Changing now to a floating line and a single dry fly I cast to the first ring I saw sure to catch the next trout. Nothing. Sometimes as anglers we overcomplicate matters as I did then. Rather than using a big bushy fly I tried to match the hatch using the smallest parachute Adams in the box, a great all rounder by the way for both rivers and still water’s, and it back fired. Not a pull. Gavin, ever the lets try the most outrageous fly in the box for a laugh suggested a Turk’s tarantula which he had bought in
The fishing considering the weather was great, well stocked and all the trout we caught where in tip top condition. The dry fly fishing in the summer months must be awesome.
Overall would I go again, probably not? The scenery and the fishery itself are great but the lack of catch and release puts me off. I do still eat trout and every now and again I will take two fish, one for myself and one for the better half however I never need four. The prices are good at £60 for two people for the motor and the boat which is probably slightly less than the average. However if you fished the reservoir properly and in better conditions you could easily be finished in one hour which makes the venue costly. Lastly I personally am not into killing fish for the sake of it when these can be returned unharmed. So because of this I can only give the fishery a rating of 5/10 – sorry to you anglers who love the place.
Tight Lines
