Pictures from the first half of the season, Rutland Water

 A picture says a thousand words, so here are millions of words............

Boat Fishing: a season of contrasts..from Rob Waddington

We’ve had two months of incredible contrasts since your last ‘Big Puddle’. Early April saw huge hatches of buzzers with the March stock fish turning on to them with relish. At times, it seemed like there were more fish than water in areas such as Dickenson’s Bay: so close in, that the bank fishing was just as frantic. On a south wind the opposite bank was as prolific from the Transformer as far up as Tim Appleton’s.

Two or three buzzers under a bung accounted for big bags of fighting fish and many were safely released to provide us with ‘more wary’ four pounders later in the year. As April progressed, the trout came higher in the water on cloudy days and emergers or dries worked.

Then, just as quickly, the buzzers seemed to disappear only to be replaced in the trout’s diet by massive hatches of olive nymphs. Then the dry fly fishing came into it’s own.

On very windy days, the rudder saved the day, with a strong wind blowing along the shoreline.

Around the end of April, I suspected that, as the top of the North Arm was fishing so well, there was no reason not to think that the top of the South would also be fishing. Traditional May/June locations such as Hideaway Bay or Cattle Trough may also have been worth a look. Yes, there were big fish in there, initially taking early season lures such as black and green tadpoles. This then turned into some of the loveliest and most exciting dry fly fishing I’ve ever had.

We had some spectacular dry fishing though May with CDC suspenders, Bob’s bits and daddy longlegs working well on the right day.

Lots of large powerful grown on fish mean our leaders must be strong enough to hold them on the take. Many fish are smashing finer leaders like cotton.

A major feature was the incredible clarity of the water; in some places you could see down to 25 ft, just like the Caribbean Sea with weed beds as lush as a chalk stream and full of food for the trout.

Some perfect, ‘proper Rutland Fish’ were caught all over the lake with the top of the North Arm and the top of the South Arm being the place for the better fish.

 

Picture 10A

This brilliant fishing couldn’t last or there wouldn’t be any fish left in the lake: and of course it didn’t!

 

After the bumper start, there commenced a season of meteorological contrasts - often every day changing winds from the West/East/South/North. We also had flat calms, strong gales, and thunderstorms. There was also rain, high and low pressure and cold and hot days. It bewildered us; never mind the fish!

And now, as I write, it seems that every trout in the lake is feeding on the abundance of pin fry and are virtually uncatchable! (Please send your tyings and pics of your special ‘pin fry’ flies for the next Big Puddle). It’s not been unusual to cast at hundreds of fish and maybe fool one: but it’ll be a good one! These fry are tiny, jelly bodied ‘pins’ with two black eyes and are all around the margins. Everywhere you look you’ll see chasing, supping trout gorging on these ‘jelly fry’.

On hot sunny days, the damsels are showing in huge numbers and many fish contain dozens of the nymphs. During one fry feeding frenzy, your editor had some success with a #14 pearl bodied cormorant; just the single fly and figure of eight retrieve, ignoring the ‘risers’:  or a tiny #14 version of the ethafoam floating fry:  or a ‘swiftly’ fished gold and silver tube!

Often you had to cast right on the nose of a ‘supping fish. However, these fish can drive a fly fisherman mad!

There are more stock fish in amongst some biggies in the main basin from the Fishing Lodge to the Peninsula and on the usual Normanton/Sykes Lane bank; with more and more fish now being taken from the open water. These seem a little more receptive to the fly.

Currently, the new ‘beach’ is being built at Sykes Lane. So, perhaps we can look forward to some bone fishing in the shallows off ‘Bondi Beach’ very soon? Maybe, flats fishing for Tarpon.

It’ll be interesting to see how the fishing changes over the next few summer months.

See future blogs.

 

Another Totally Awesome Fishing Show

Rob of Rutland Water Fly Fishing had another visit from the legendary Graeme Pullen last week. Graeme has an immensely popular YouTube programme 'the Totally Awesome Fishing Show'. This has many followers and recently had its 6 MILLIONTH view!! We wanted to make a show about the amazing dry fly fishing we'd been having. However, Mother Nature had other plans as he was met by strong South Westerly winds.

So, we changed tactics and produced a film about 'Rudder Fishing'. This is far from fly fishing purists' stuff but it can save a hard day. Using a rudder attached to the stern of the fishing boat, we aim the bows with the wind and 'drag' some 'flies' behind a full line. Believe me guys, this can be spectacularly productive and the bigger the wind the better it works.
I'm getting more relaxed with these things now and had some good fun with Graeme, this time without Mike, his son and expert cameraman/editor who was away working. Watch out the the next in this interesting series on Rutland Water, see www.rutlandwaterflyfishing.co.uk to go fishing with Rob.

Well known trout fishing celebrity and Rutland all-round superstar, Rob Waddington has pointed his new found acting career towards Hollywood. The Totally Awesome Fishing Show managed to secure an exclusive of his first photo sent in to Paramount pictures .It was Rob's character portrayal of Cap'n  Jack Sparrow, together with the cockle-eye look that he hopes will win him a part in the next film sequel-"Pirates of Normanton Church ". He has also been on ebay with a view to purchasing a budgerigar for his shoulder .Of course there those that say there are more than enough budgies in his fly box !!

 



Then last weekend Rob and his Lakeside B&B www.thelodgebarnsdale.co.uk hosted a TV crew from France. They're doing a 50 minute film of English reservoir fishing and filming well known guides and personalities from Chew (John Horsey), Blagdon (Gareth Jones) Bewl (Bob Barden) Grafham (Craig Barr) and Eyebrook and Rutland Water (Rob Waddington).

 Rutland Water had just become incredibly difficult with the trout switching on to the 'pin fry'. These are the minute jelly-like young of perch, bream, roach etc and when the trout 'lock on' to them, the fishing is notoriously 'ROCK HARD' coupled with hotter temps than Spain, blistering sunshine and very light wispy breezes from all directions, I knew that this wasn't going to be easy. The night before I received an email from director Philippe that they'd had an amazing evening on Chew with John Horsey.... so no pressure then!!!!

Saturday afternoon, we fished Eyebrook Reservoir, a beautiful, peaceful (not for me!) lake which is famous for it's top of the water action... daddy longlegs, hoppers and cdc emergers were apparently working well. Good news as the guys wanted to take shots of dry fly action.

Well it was 'scorchio' out there, flat calm, hot as the desert and not a fish been caught by any one that day!

We set off, and had a few takes and follows, I had a fish on the Daddy, so a action good shot was in the can. Many hours later I had another, hard fishing!  Then at dusk, 10.15pm, Philippe finally caught an Eyebrook rainbow off the top, phew! "CUT!!"

This fishing on film is pretty tough, as we all know, fish are wild animals and they do things how they want to do them, and sometimes they just won't play by the rules.

Monday on Rutland Water.... a comp the day before produced more blanks than catches so I know this was going to be a challenge.

It seemed like every fish which ever existed in the world was chasing the pin fry in the Rutland margins. We must have cast to thousands of trout and got some lovely shots of gorging trout, but a couple a fish each to Philippe and myself was the score for the day.

The highlight of the day was capturing an Osprey diving and catching a fish on film, so that's the way to do it!

The evening was spent fishing from the bank by my house www.thelodgebarnsdale.co.uk and for this session we were joined by Craig Barr who, with the confidence of youth greeted us with "pin fry feeders?...easy!" Well, they weren't Craig, were they? Both Craig and I had 2 fish each, and Philippe had 1... a long day ended with a beer or two tying flies in my fishing cabin.

I hope the film looks good, there is much, much more to guiding and filming than merely catching fish and I'm sure that we put over the 'ambience' of fishing in Rutland and did ourselves proud.

Footnote...I'd heard that Grafham was fishing it's head off, so I thought Craig would have a bonanza there on the Tuesday...but it had also 'switch off' with just 1 fish between them all day..

There must be an easier job...lion taming perhaps!

Rob Waddington

 

Tips for beginners Fly Fishing on a flat calm, sunny day

There's a big competition on at Rutland Water today, and I've been watching a flotilla of boats in the bay by my lodge and a few thoughts came into mind.
This is April 2014 and Dickenson's bay has been choc full of trout since the season began in March.



When I first brought a boat in here a while ago to see if the bay held fish, I was astounded at the number of eagerly feeding trout all over the bay but mainly right in close by the back, almost under the trees.
Mostly smallish, fresh stockies probably swimming here from Transformer on the South Shore of the peninsula, but with a few good silver ones mixed in.
This has been a guarantee* of excellent sport for a good few weeks and my clients have enjoyed fast and furious sport.
Back to the armada in the bay. The rules of the competition, in this case a Police Federation Match, are that the first 4 fish must be taken and weighed then catch and release thereafter giving each released fish a score of 2 pounds.
A useful tactic would be to catch 4 fish quickly (some of the stock fish are less than 2 pounds in weight) and keep catching all day to build up the 2 pound bonus weight.
However, it seemed to me that the boats in the bay weren't catching quick enough to achieve that goal. The reason is probably clearer from up here on my balcony with a clear view of the proceedings, but in the frenzy of competitive angling, the 'mist' can form and some basic fly fishing watercraft can be forgotten.
Dickenson's bay isn't deep, it's probably one of the shallowest creeks on the lake apart from a few lovely shelves and deeper spots. Recently the fish have been on the shelf as the bottom, easily seen as a light brown colour gives way to the deeper, darker water with a weedy bed. The weeds which flourished on the low water mark last year, approx. 25 yards out are still there, the winter just gone was incredibly mild and the weedbeds which hold huge amounts of food are still growing, as can be seen when you lift up the anchor against mountains of lush, food rich greenery. So that's where the fish have been. By the way, I do prefer to drift with the wind but with the recent breezy weather, a steady anchored boat has been more effective.
But, as we know, every day can be different, and today, we have bright, warm sunshine and no wind.
If you were a fish, where would you be?
Trout don't like bright sun. They don't have a peaked cap or sunglasses, or even eyelids. The water here is very clear and there are many predators looking for a trout-sized meal. In fact an osprey flew over the bay just now and decided it wasn't the pace to hunt. Probably because those trout which were happy feeding in shallow water during a good ripple on the water and an overcast sky, now, are finding the depths, in safety away from the sun.

Dickenson's Bay with 10 boats, 2 out of sight

Also, this bay isn't large and there are now 10 boats, each with 2 fishermen, casting away, motoring around and all congregated in the shallow areas where the competitors found fish in the days before, during their practice sessions. But those fish must also be getting nervous with the fishing pressure and will move away from all the commotion.
There are some fish being caught occasionally, usually by the boats either over the deeper holes or the ones on the periphery, ie away from the main concentration of anglers.
They are being caught on either slowly fished buzzers or similar flies suspended underneath a 'bung' or sight indicator. 'Pure' indicators are not allowed in competitions, so to make it legal, you can by tie a hook in it and calling it a floating fly. I often fished a 'bung' made from 15, yes 15 Cul De Canard tips onto a size 10 nymph hook. It works well and there's a good chance that a trout will take 'the bung' itself.
I've no problem with this, it's a mighty effective way of fishing buzzers how they really should be fished, that is, static. An occasional 'draw' lifts the buzzers and then let's them fall back through the water, and a nice ripple helps with a 'dangling' irresistible movement. Plus, it's a method using widely on the famous River Test, a purist water if there ever was one. They use a hi viz floating 'klinkhammer' and attach a sinking nymph to it. Watch the dry fly disappear and the trout has probably taken the sunken nymph. Great fun and very effective. I love to fish 'the bung'.
So, if the conditions, and I mean the weather conditions and the 'traffic' conditions aren't good for this location where should they go?
You could prowl around the edge of the main fleet and pick up fish moving to somewhere quieter, probably fining down to a 6 weight set up and perhaps a thinner leader. I wouldn't go lighter for the leader as the fish still pull hard, 8lb breaking strain minimum, but a more expensive, thinner make such as Orvis Mirage etc. The lighter set up will produce more delicate presentation. Many of the anglers out there are casting long distances but the lack of a wily presentation may easily spook any remaining fish.
You could stick around and wait either for most boats to give up and move away and also hope for a breeze to cover the shiny water in a camouflaging ripple. In a flat calm the fish see everything, boats, fly line etc at least ripple would disguise the anger and boat.
Or you could move. I probably would have seen the number of boats in there and gone somewhere else initially. In my experience I believe that that this particular bay on Rutland Water can take a maximum of 3 boats to fish well. More than that, certainly 10 plus boats will probably drive the fish out and into safety.
There have been other spots on Rutland which have produced big numbers of fish recently and these seem to have had a higher proportion of bigger, grown on fish. Transformer for example, with it's shallow bank and lovely dark drop off had held many fish with some real corkers of 4 pounds and over for me and my clients over the past few weeks. Finches down to Armley Wood, Armley around to Carrot Creek and Barhill are good areas now and at least on that bank, the water has been in the shade for longer. The water being shaded by the Hambleton rolling hills until noon.
The South Arm has deep water off Old Hall Point and again slightly in the shade, Gibbets Gorse and New Zealand Point.
On days like this when there's no wind and glaring sunshine, it's not going to be easy. All competitors could struggle and the tactics have to change. It's not a race any more. The initial plan to catch lots of fish and win with a large bonus weight may not work today and perhaps a different strategy could be worth considering.
Maybe to try and target bigger fish first then hope that the afternoon will bring a few cloud, a decent ripple and that this will induce the fish to come on to the take in more 'stockie-filled' locations, may be worth considering.
Where's that then? You ask. Well I could tell you but I'd have to kill you I'm afraid ;) Joking of course. I'd try a few deeper areas which normally would produce grown on fish later in the year, about May/June. The lack of severe frosts mean that those areas still have weedy beds and therefor are a magnet for wise old trout.
In the deeper holes at the top of the arms; off the Normanton or Sykes shore well out from the shelf; along the dam; around the towers. Risky gamble but often, 'he who dares wins' a couple of good fish may be several times the weight of 4 small stock fish and it may just win the match for someone today.  May not though, these are wild animals' after all and we may think we know what they'll do, but we really, I mean really don't know for sure at all.
Rob

 
* Sorry, we can't actually guarantee anything in fishing, that's why it's called 'fishing'...not 'catching'

Red Letter Day for Angus

Sometimes all the fishing Gods smile down on us poor fishermen.
We cope with rain, winds, sun and generally the wrong weather seeking for a miracle to happen when all things come good and we catch a fish. But, occasionally the Gods smile for us and give us a day like today.
Rutland Water's been on fire for weeks, with great catches and great fishing.
But this was something else.

Today was Angus's first trip to Rutland this year, he comes a few times every season and we fish together with lots of fun and laughs and have become good friends. There're some funny stories to tell of our fishing jaunts but Angus often has a great day catching either his biggest or best or most fish, so far. I will add to this story and this blog some time soon, but for now, these pictures speak a thousand words.