Sorry, more inane questions!
My casting is now OK and hopefully I can now navigate my fly around the water and hopefully near a fish.

I have joined the jobs Fly-Fishing section and the first venue is a stocked reservoir with a mixture of deep and shallow water with a choice of Boat or Bank fishing.

I am sure that the members will be very helpful but there are a few things I am not sure about and I don’t want to turn up and be a total burden.

Leaders. My ‘Outfit’ came with 3 Lines floating, intermediate and sinking lines.

What leaders do I use and how long?

What flies do I use?

I have looked the venue up and they recommend Bearded Flies? and ones that imitate Fry?

Alas, I am none the wiser, and the bottom line is ,if I wish to buy the above , what do I ask for?

Cheers Rob.

Brave of you to come out in such a public forum. I've got a mate who's so far at the back of closet he should be in ****** Narnia.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so bohemian I thought I was just asking a simple question. . . . . .

How Naive!

A reservoir? Not a pond? Good! A reservoir is much more satisfying to fish. Get an Ordnance Survey map of the reservoir and look at the walls and other boundaries of the land next to the reservoir. Head for places on the reservoir where there is a good chance that old roads, lanes, footpaths, ditches, walls, hedgerows, streams once used to be but are now inundated.

Failing that, once you have rigged up your tackle (including a leader a couple of feet longer than your rod to start with, leave the 20 foot leaders until later on in your career), wander around the shoreline looking for these types of features. Wear polaroids whilst doing this and when you get near one, keep a sharp eye open for signs of fish. Fish these places using the flies you have been recommended but also try buggy things like Black and Peacock Spider, Corixa, Chompers, Damselfly Nymph and so on.

These snaggy structures are often very good habitat for all sorts of things that fish eat, so they are worth fishing in, on, over and by the side of. If you lose a fly or two you are probably fishing just right but need to be an inch to one side next cast.

Try not to wade. Instead, concentrate on looking very hard for fish (they might be right in the edge) and avoid scaring them. Take a floating line and a sinking line so you can make your searches three dimensional.

If the water is blessed by flag or reed beds along the shore, do try fishing along the very edge of these. This might mean making a cast only a yard or so out from the bank but several yards long almost parallel to the bank.

Keep as far away from other rods as you can. They only muck things up for you by talking to each other and wading.

richard

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Who resides on the right bank of the Derbyshire Wye and is lulled to sleep each night by the mutterings of a weir, dreaming that "When the rivers and their inhabitants come first, we ALL win..."

Hi Rob, for your leader I would suggest a ready made tapered leader 9ft in length and around 7lb reaking strain, you can get them at any fly tackle dealer for a few £.
As for flies you could do a lot worse than a selection of black and olive woolly buggers in size 12 to 8.
Tell us how you get on, Tight lines.

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"Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip." - John Gierach

Good advice already posted Rob...............mine is to keep it quiet, try not thrash the water and above all else keep your fly in the water................tight lines.............birdsnest

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Fear not if I steal from your side, as of yore, from paradise streams to fish Teifi once more.
BN based in Wolverhampton

Some split shot might prove useful.

Thank you very much.

Will try my best to follow the good advice given and not fall in.

Rob.

Hi Rob did you go?
Given up on the Pike in the canal?
I sent a you a pm, did you get it?
I went for a session on a stockie pond just to get the feel of catching a fish on a fly rod before going for the Pike, all I can say is "stuff the Pike, give me a trout"
Next time we go to Ireland I am taking a fly rod, they caught more than we did!!