Il start with yesterday

Me and my brother entered the dever springs heat of the fishing for heroes tournament. After hearing that fishing had improved there I was full of enthusiasm, as was my brother. We started fishing at 9am and I feel it was fishing very slowly. I tried both lakes and had a few follows but nothing would take my fly. I tried everything I could think of but to no avail. In the end I managed to tempt a 5pm rainbow with a small black emerger pattern fished just under the surface. After lunch it was back to the smaller lake and again very slow. I tried a small CDC emerger and managed to take another fish of just over 5lbs. My brother unfortunately clanked after missing a few half hearted pulls in the larger lake. I was very disappointed in the place, no gutting facilities and very slow fishing. I don't think il fish there again.

Then onto today.........

My brother and I were on the road nice and early and arrived at avington for half past seven. We tackled up and paid for our tickets and were fishing at eight. I started off in the second lake with a small black emerger and was soon into a fish, after a couple of minutes though it made a break for open water and took my fly with it. I quickly changed to a heavy stalking bug pattern and moved round a little and cast to a few fish, after a couple of follows I managed to get the larger of the few fish to engulf the fly and another fight ensued. I was amazed at how fit this fish was and it fought like hell then twang!!!! My leader snapped at the loop. It seemed I was having a bad day!

I decided to beef up my leader and go for a walk, so I strolled up the side of lake three. I spotted a good fish, lurking under a tree and catapulted my fly towards him, as I brought the fly past his nose he turned and bang, the fly was hit from nowhere by a 5lbs rainbow. I managed to land it and it fought very well. I carried on my stroll and came to the gates by the new house. There were a few larger fish swimming around so again I flicked out my avington stalking bug and after a couple of flicks I had another on. It fought and fought and as I tried to manoeuvre into a decent landing position, I lost the fight and my leader snapped again. I was using an 8lb fluorocarbon leader but twice it has snapped on me. Quite a few other fisherman had the same problem.

I them walked back to the second lake and changed to a 10lb leader and a gold head daddy. I tried to target what looked to be a smaller double but he wasn't interested at all. Again just as I got the fly in front of sizeable fish a smaller fish engulfed my fly and shot off to the other side of lake. Determined not to lose him I played him gently and after a few minutes he was on the bank. He weighed just I've five and a half pounds and fought very well. With my limit caught I stood with my brother and he managed to bag his second fish with a small daddy.

I am very impressed with avington. The staff are kind and friendly,the water gin clear and the fish are great fighters. What awesome place and I plan to be there drain next month. Awesome!! Also met Neil from this forum and Neil if you read this I hope you managed to get yourself a nice double, and thanks for the advice.

Good to meet both of you, even the "stockies" show some frightening acceleration!

Although several were taken from all three lakes, I failed on the double front. I did find two just a few yards up from where we were. They both ignored everything I chucked at them.

Ended up with a nice 9lber from the first corner of the middle lake:

__________________
http://bigrainbows.blogspot.com/

Hi Brownieseeker,

That's a lot of broken leaders.

I have fished Avington quite a bit and landed many doubles, but never felt the need to go above 9lb Riverge fluorocarbon. I can't remember the last time a fish broke my leader.

Are you sure your knots are being tied properly? I have found some leader brands knot better than others, with the knots I use anyway, and Riverge has always performed well in this respect for me, even with an explosive double at short range.

A simple tucked 5 turn half-blood knot at the fly and a 4 turn water knot at the other end joining the leader to a permanent short piece of 18lb mono that's nail knotted to the fly line. This set up works for me.

I wrote a report on Dever as i fished it on Friday(tri[p to Dever) I think there is a problem with the water at the mo, the fish just werent feeding, and dead fish gives us a clue somthings wrong!! I suspect it will get better as it cools off. Did you see any big fish, i didnt in the small lake. The best fly i had was a pheasant tail nymph either on the drop or flat out, anything in between was a no-no. I managed 4 by 12pm and left the others to it lol

I must say at the moment i am biten with Avington, and in the spring i shall be back LOL

The following makes interesting reading on knots. Written by Dave Chilton of Kryston it was originally just about nylon monos but has been updated to cover fluorocarbons (scroll down to the update).

Knots are a personal thing, I need to have confidence in them before I trust them, but you need to use them over a period to get that confidence!

I use Incognito Fluoro in 7lb at Avington and use a four turn half blood knot without a tuck for the fly. That took a lot of convincing! Only four turns and no tuck, you must be joking! But it works. I've had conversations with Dave on this subject and it's amazing the technology behind fluoros and the impact on knots and knot strength.

Ultimate Knots - FishingMagic Online Fishing Magazine.

__________________
http://bigrainbows.blogspot.com/

Yes, very interesting Neil, especially the fluoro part, think I will give a try at Dever on Saturday - hopefully the fishing and welcome will be better than most recent reports, but I promised the old man a trip so who am I to argue?!

Thankyou Neil. That makes for interesting reading. I think I need to go for a better quality tippet material and also look at the knots I use to tie my least to my loop. Also what do people find works best? Is it best to use a nail knot or stick with braided loops?

Cheers

Mike

I am one of the apparent minority on here who has no use for braided loops, and I simply nail knot a knotless taper leader to the end of the fly line for small stillwater fishing.

For stalking, I tie the weighted nymph or bug to the other end of the 9 foot knotless taper. I think that when stalking, you need the capability to go to target fast and straight with rapid turnover that this relatively short leader offers.

If fishing the water, I'll add a 3 to 5 foot tippet to make a 12 to 14 foot leader.

Leader choice is a bit more complex in reservoir fishing due to the wide variety of effective methods, but I still nail knot the leader straight to the fly line.

__________________
"In wine there is wisdom. In beer there is strength. In water there is bacteria." - German proverb
JH based near Southampton

Much to the chagrin of my salmon fishing ghillies, i'm the laziest fisherman out there. braided loop and then 9foot of straight through 7lb fulling mill flouro for my stalking. I can't remember ever being broken in the fight on this set up. I tie my fly, as Neil does with a 4 turn half blood. I just think we overcomplicate everything from knots to leaders to lines etc etc. the person who can get his fly to the big fish first usually gets the prize so i'm out fishing while most people are still tackling up!

So if we look at this another way BB, you and I agree on the following that Mike might like to consider;

Keep it simple;
Short-ish leader for pure stalking;
Crack on and find your target fish promptly...how crowded or not the water is on the day has a bearing on this, of course.

__________________
"In wine there is wisdom. In beer there is strength. In water there is bacteria." - German proverb
JH based near Southampton