A few piccies of my first rudd on the fly, hope you like.

__________________
Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey

Beautiful fish, the rudd. Did it give a solid take?

Actually 2 diferrent fish,both taken at a trout water on a 6#.

One took on the drop, the other on the retrieve. On the drop was a solid take, the retrieve was a much more subtle indication.

Both took black & peacock spiders.

__________________
Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey

I have been using size 20 cdc drys for rudd, have to be quick though, they spit them out in a second. Use a 4wt rod though. Have been doing this under a dam in Poland and also in a trout lake near horsham, Rudgewick although was fishing for trout then.

I have just bought Powder Mill lakes near Maresfield East Sussex, closed down the coarse fishing there temporarily while present syndicate clear out their prized carp and will re open March/April. hoping to create a mixed fly and coarse as there are 7 lakes. Wanted to do the largest lake which is 6 acres as fly only. Will inevitably not be able to get all coarse out, big pike and perch there, bream, carp chub tench..

While there checking the place out before I bought it I cast a 16 pheasant tail into a small weir and wham, took a carp of about 1 1/2 lbs, fought harder than a farmed rainbow, then caught a bream on 3rd cast, same result.

Who really needs trout when coarse fish take so well. I don't want carp fishing in main lake as my house is on the side of it so overnighting is out for the green bivi brigade but am going to try out 300 browns introduced to see how they get on once the large carp are out. Hopefully they will eat the fry and keep the coarse fish from breeding too much.

I will post opening dates here and exact location, the place has been a secret synidicate so far, its not the Powder Mill near Hastings.