where did you go?
what did you catch?
what did you catch on/techniques?

il start, been to fontburn reservoir today lovely weather baking hot all day (made fishing difficult around midday) started at the point of a bay had 3 rainbows on a green and black fritz fished slow and twitchy on a long leader and floating line until it all died off then went to the dam wall for the deeper water. and pulled out another two on the same fly. seems to be green and black was the colour of the day.
also spotted a wild lizard and baby adder which really topped it off for me. .

how did your sunday fishing go?

I fished the broken scar stretch of the tees this afternoon. Same weather, baking hot, loads of families and dog walkers making fishing a little difficult at times. Caught 6 trout and 2 grayling fishing some north country spiders.

__________________

“Where the footprints end the fishing begins”

yeah same problem, dont you just hate it when they love to stand and admire the view...... directly behind you back cast but hey ho, free country

Consider the dogs and their walkers to be like the trouts bunkers. I generally stop fishing when walkers appear. Then again thats usually because I dont want to advertise the catchability of the fish.

Hi,

Went to a section of the River Wansbeck in Northumberland today. Only fished for about an hour or so and caught nothing!

Am I bothered? Not at all, because I was fishing with my 5 year old son. Quality time with my boy means more to me than anything, helped him with casting and he's quite good at retrieving. Saw a heron and a Dipper too and was a lovely sunny day. Doesn't get much better than that!

Nick.

I went to local this afternoon for a couple of hrs or so,spent more time sat on my butt drinking beer and talking to some bloke than i did fishing.And yes i took the empty's home with me

Neil

yeah mate nothing better than father son fishing, went with my dad too today its always good crack, cant wait till i have a son of my own to make my fishing prodigy sounds like you'v got the same idea

A day/weekend of firsts for me. Apologies for the long report!

I'm up north staying with my sister near Inverness. She's a novice fly fisher but dead keen. So yesterday, we were at Geddes. Her casting was ropey, to say the least, but after a few pointers she was getting a fish-catching line out with nice loops - most of the time. Was pretty hard going but my sister got her first fish - a wee wild brownie of about 5 inches long. And her second - also a wee wild brownie. Both on a peter ross snatcher (a Dave Downie pattern) that I'd tied up for her as part of a collection I gave to her as a "thank you for having me" present. (Don't worry - she got a bottle of booze and an easter egg too!) I caught a couple of trees, a couple of brownies and a couple of rainbows for which were kept for dinner.

Today, I didn't much fancy fishing again but she was on a roll. So we went to Dunlichity - it's a small place stuffed full of decent sized rainbows. I have to say, it's a bit smaller than what I'd usually go for but the owner was dead friendly as were the other anglers and it's an attractive, accessible spot. Fish were rising pretty freely. After getting a couple of knocks on buzzers, and in view of the rises, I decided the washing line was the way to go, using a fiery brown hog-hopper on the point (tied up thanks to Davie McPhail's youtube videos). Blow me if the fish didn't rise and take the hog-hopper instead of the buzzers. So I got my first and second fish on a dry. Was totally stoked and, having caught and released a couple, the pressure was off. So the hog-hopper came off too, as did the buzzers, and I went totally dry fly.

Had seen a couple of pond olives around so on went a grey parachute emerger type thing with a red butt (can't remember the name). Another two fish. So on with the experiment and on with a black Bob's Bits. Another three fish. Decided to try a brown biot loop emerger. That worked too - another fish before I managed to crack it off on the back cast and didn't have a replacement. Finally, tried one of Davie McPhail's sparse midges in black. Another fish. Not bad for a four hour session and never having caught on dries before. Of course, having willing (suicidal?) fish helped! Mind you, not everybody was catching, so i must have been doing something right.

Even better was my sister getting her first rainbow - indeed, her first fish to fight back. And boy, did it fight back! With a bit of coaching she landed a belter - 3lb 5oz. Killed it, unhooked it, spooned it and (eventually) gutted it, all by herself. (In that order.) I am a very proud brother! That one was given to her neighbours and her second is in the freezer.

What did become obvious to me was the importance of having the last few feet of leader sub-surface. It was very bright and sunny. When the wind dropped and the ripple died away, I could see fish coming to inspect my fly. If the leader was floating, they turned away. If the leader was sunk, they took the fly, and it didn't seem to matter much what the fly was. Very exciting! Getting the leader to sink in a dead calm was a challenge but judicious use of leeda-sink saved the day.

Am feeling revitalised!

Neil

I went to Burns Fishery in Tarbolton, Ayrshire (where I usually go every Sunday!). It was a lovely day, although with a bit of a breeze too.

I got a rainbow (about 1.5 lbs) on a red buzzer under an indicator. Missed a further two on the buzzer, and dropped two, one on the buzzer, and one on dry fly.

As the sun went down, there was a good rise of fish, and on my very last cast of the day, I got a nice 3lb Blue trout (my first ever blue!) on a Shipman's Buzzer.

A great day to be out and about.

Tight Lines all!

Keith