Rutland Water Fly Fishing. A personal look back at 2013 and a January day fishing at Grafham water

You know the feeling, it almost comes as a relief when the season closes at the end of December here on Rutland Water. 2013 has been a busy season, certainly for me with on average 4 or 5 days a week on the water. A feature of Rutland last year was the high number of  big, true ‘Rutland Fish’ caught. Grown-on pristine beauties, of which this water is famous for. A good amount of 5-6 pounders and more than the usual number of double figure trout, I counted 4 doubles caught this year, 2 rainbows and 2 brown trout, that I know of.

I did a lot of Bank fishing till June and due to mainly South or East winds I concentrated mainly in theDam,  Fantasy Island, Armley, Carrot Creek areas and in a Westerley; Whitwell Creek with good fishing on both floating line Buzzers and deep Boobies. A shame I couldn’t fish much from Barnsdale Road End last season due to the wind direction and the new stone work making access difficult.

One highlight for me was the 7 1/2 pound eel I caught on a cat’s whisker booby in April from Fantasy Island!

 Boat fishing through the early Summer was productive, hampered by occasional coloured water, though a deep Black and Green Booby worked wonders, as did static Buzzers on calmer days. Manton Bay attracted nearly every fisherman on the water in July as it became hot with fish, sadly being heavily fished in the Airflo competition when nearly 1400 fish were taken from this small area.  Much of August was spent  hammering the ‘boils’ as they went ‘ballistic’ in the cool clear. oxygenated water  on a variety of lines. My favourite was a Di7 and pink booby (maybe it reminds them of those pink shrimps which have now become part of the staple diet of Rutland trout?).

Stalking the North and South Arm weedbeds for quality fish in September and October was truly lovely with some lovely warm Summer days and plenty of happy customers. My best memory was quietly motoring along the huge weedbeds right up the North Arm, waiting to see fish then dropping a cdc or suspender minkie in its path, then watching the bow wave as a superbly conditioned trout turns for  the fly. Not a method for numbers of fish as more time is spent waiting and watching than fishing, but very exciting nevertheless.

November didn’t fulfil its promise for a ‘fry feeding frenzy’  (again), why this time? Maybe the weedbed were too luxurious and the trout found the shrimp and corixa easier to find, who knows, but the fishing became even tougher in November and December.

Trout were caught in early Winter, some biggies but you had to be at the right place at the right time. It seemed to me that they weren’t aggressively feeding, perhaps due to the comparably warm weather.

So, normally, after Christmas, I breathe a sigh of relief, pack the tackle away, batten donw the hatches  and ‘hibernate’ from fishing till April, perhaps dream of some saltwater fly fishing, wading in the warm waters of the Caribbean before the season opens again.

However, this year, things are a bit different, no Winter sun fly fishing adventures for me this time. Tough economic conditions and repair work at home have put paid to that idea!  And the seasons are slightly different in 2014. Anglian Water want to get more revenue (don’t we all) and have negotiated with English Nature to keep the waters open longer, so Grafham Water has still been open through January this Winter.

Actually this year, I have got to know Grafham better than before, having some wonderful fishing in Savages and a few good bank fishing days. It’s far from a concrete bowl in lovely scenery. Like Rutland, the bank fishing has been badly affected by the stone works but reports of great bank fishing from the Dam, Gaynes Cove, G bouy etc resulted in me doing a few trips in December with  mixed results. Some days were great, and some days the fish seemed to disappear, some days early mornings were best, on others, it was around 1pm when they came on. The water colour on Grafham had an influence, and a murky colour ensured that the fishing was difficult.

So there I was, after a weekend of torrential rain and howling gales spending a surprisingly warm day fishing from a boat on Grafham Water in the middle of January in flat calm, sunny conditions. I didn’t expect much apart from a respite from ‘cabin fever’ at home. It’s always going to be difficult at the end of the season. The water’s cold, there’s a lack of food and also a lack of fish, who knows how many are left in the water but there certainly won’t be the big pods of trout which we get through the main months of the season.  Well, I got my first trout of 2014 plus a hard fighting ‘branch’ which you might call a ‘large perch’ if you were a cormorant!  Funny how these ‘snags’ seem to pull back, I thought it was a huge brown at first J however, a large grown-on  ‘tree pounder’ was the result! –sorry!

My personal take on the 2013 season was overall the fishing was excellent, the catching particularly in the back end was patchy, we would certainly benefit from a higher stocking density in the Autumn. A lot of fish were caught in the Summer competitions which affected the level of fish in the lake.  Could competitions be run on the lines of river matches for example, on a C&R points system?  Would a 4 fish maximum then C&R be more suitable, It would be interesting to get angler’s views. This year’s fishing, if you were out every day, which I virtually am teaching or guiding and a good number of pleasure fishing sessions, was characterised by almost every day being different, one day loads of fish, the next day in the same place, same wind, same tactics you’d be struggling. A strong tip to fish one area one day might be worthless the day after.  You’ve just had to be in the right place at the right time, and that’s fishing all over. As the old  saying goes, if it was easy it’d be called ‘catching’.

Rutland Water is opening on March 15^th and I’ve taken my first fishing job on the 16^th, what will it be like? Anglian Water have promised to stock earlier, so the head of fish will be there, but March can be a tricky month, with the distinct possibility of freezing winds and maybe even snow. I remember when Rutland could withstand a good blow and stay clear, but this isn’t the case now. The waves crash onto bare muddy banks and exposed points  and produce large unfishable slicks, and together with reduced bank access, notably at  Whitwell Creek usually an early season hotspot, it may prove to be a hard opening day. Then again, a beautifully sunny, mild March day with buzzers hatching could also on the cards….nurse! He’s out of bed again!! We wait and see, there’s just  one certainty- we’ll all give it a try, all the best for the new season.