Hi everyone,

Been a keen salmon angler(fly) I turn to fish the stillwaters in the winter time (Oct-March).Haven't recently gone to a fishery I have noticed a lot of fish on the surface with showing the fins and boiling effects.I have thrown my flies that I imagined would be a cert!! But nothing,Buzzers,cdc,klinkhammers,F Fly,hares ear and pheasant tail nymphs still nothing,Tried fishing them static and with the bung still nothing...I know a lot of these fish would have been nipped when there put in surely they have to be feeding on something...Perhaps you have come across this situation and maybe you have conquered it...please let me know if you can please...

cheers Paul

Hi Paul and welcome to the forum.

Sounds as though they could be chomping on corixa. Try a small spider fished under the surface, casting to moving fish and feel for the take. Sometimes, you'll see the fish head-and-tail over your fly.

Hope that helps,

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Dave Wiltshire

River Fly Box

Had exactly this situation this afternoon and after trying buzzers, dries, emergers etc with no joy, put a black and peacock on, cast into the fish and got a hook up before i had even started the retrive. Worth a try.

__________________
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

When fish are first introduced into a fishery...its said they adjust there swim bladder to water pressure. Some even believe they map the water in their brain before feeding. They may have been fed pellets before being transported. Sometimes they just won't look at a fly, besides, you don't really want to catch these fish do you! Just get the depth, colour of fly and speed of retrieve correct and you won't go far wrong. Ask other anglers who are catching for a peek at there flies. And face it...you may have to use lures and the like!

At my local water there are a lot of trees shedding their leaves onto the water. The fish seemed to be feeding on the insects coming off the fallen foliage and after getting a few on green hotspot spiders i decided to fish a lime okay dokey new zealand style about 20cm under a Sedgehog. Boy did it work


Jay

They could be on small fry
when i was fishing last the fish came up hiy the fly with its tail then came back around to eat it (was using a fry imitaition)
i may be wrong but its worth a try using them

Hi Lads,

many thanks for the welcome and the advice,these fish have been in the lake for at least 4 weeks and hasn't been stocked since so its highly unlikely that this is the case of them scouting about but know exactly what your saying,because Its seems to happen after a fresh stock that you hear people say" They go down for a day or two and then its silly time with lures"..But these fish are definetly on something for sure,I will tie up some spiders what would you reckon in size wise 14 or 16's black and peacock? or is there any others I should tye,or what size of Corixa would I tye and do you have any dressings for me to tye...

I found it hard to believe that they wouldn't take the buzzers because they were gourging on something and I hope I find out...

many many thanks for all your help lads much appriciated.


paul

I had exactly the same scenario last Friday, tried loads of different patterns (including Corixa) with no success. I'd be interested to hear what tactics the more experienced memebers of this forum use in this situation, and particularly how you fish Corixa on a still water.

Valkyrie.

DEFINATELY ,stewarts black spider

as below

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WHEN YOU LEAVE THE RIVER, TAKE NOTHING, AND LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINT'S!!!

THA CAN TELL A YORKSHIREMAN ,BUT THA CAN'T TELL HIM MUCH !!

I,ve had similar situation to this about 2 weeks ago. THe fish were feeding on corixia and i could see that they were chasing them up and down through the water columb. What t did was to use 2 small ethafoam black beetles on sink tip line and a 10 ft leader both flies 5 feet apart and with a slow figure of 8 i brought both fies into the area where the fish were feeding and stopped retreving letting the flies rise up amongst the feeding fish so they acted like the corixia they were feeding hook up. I just kepted an eye on the fly line for any movement and just lifted into them. Hope this helps.

Graeme