I decided to go to my local at Bushyleaze yesterday, bouyed up by the promise of settled conditions in the evening (it had chucked it all day); and by the prospect of a repeat of my last trip there - superb surface action with a Shipman's Buzzer.

Oh how a few days changes everything! On arrival it was still grey and over cast, but beginning to settle and lots of fish on the rise - some slurping, some leaping. So on went the Shipman's..........and nothing....nil...nada.

A few fly changes later and I was still struggling to tempt these very obviously feeding trout. There were a few caenis in the air, a few small yellow spinners and a slow hatch of buzzer, with the usual sedges in the margins.

Finally, I took my only trout of the session on a claret emerger buzzer. A vicious take that took quite a lot of line before it succumbed. Not bad for a 2.5 pounder.

NOW TO THE POINT OF THIS THREAD......
I spooned the catch immediately and was very puzzled by what I observed. Apart from one small nymph, the contents were stuffed with small bright red egg-like blobs, no more than 2mm diameter. A few of these curious blobs seemed to be wriggling from within. I squeezed one between my fingers and it popped just like a salmon roe.

Has anyone observed similar contents in a catch? What tactics should I have adopted to make my session more productive? Or, am I spooning the catch correctly?

Any advice gratefully received

McDun

It sounds like you may have been a little heavy handed and spooned out some of its own roe .

__________________
Your fish ----> ><((((º> My fish ----> ><(((((((((º>
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Cheers Danny

Co-Founder of S.S.F.D 2010

Anything like this:





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Steve, Sweeny
Thanks for the replies.

Steve - hard to tell from your picture... are they daphnia? The contents I observed were consistent in size and much redder in colour.

My gut feel (no pun intended) is that Sweeny could be right and I need to be a bit more gentle with the marrow spoon! I'm still a relative newbie, having taken up the sport last October.

Cheers
McDun

I would also think that you spooned out a load of the fishes own roe.

Alan

Yes, I was thinking daphnia. The trout at Watermark were feeding on them the other day, and proving hard to get.

If they were the fish's own eggs, there would be nothing wriggling inside them - they don't start to develop until after they have been fertilised, and that happens outside the fish's body.

Hi Steve,
Well I can't really explain the wriggling observations. It was getting rather dark. Perhaps there were a few nymphs still alive, getting stuck to the roe as I forced the spoon through. I didn't tak ethe time to separate out the contents fully.

Did you have any joy at Watermark? Not tried it yet. Looks expensive.

McDun

No, I didn't have a touch over the evening. There were two other anglers fishing, who had been there all day, I think one of them had a fish. I think the water is just too warm at the moment - there were a few trout cruising around looking a bit the worse for wear, and a couple of dead ones in the margins. Lots of fish jumping, and according to one of the anglers there were daphnia being fed upon.

I think I'll probably leave Watermark until much cooler weather now. Sounds as if Bushyleaze isn't fishing too well either - I wondered how Farmoor was fishing?

Farmoor 1 was slow at the weekend, quite a few blanks in the catch book. I had a 4lb-er and lost one in 6 hours of fishing on Sunday, one other guy had 5 but looked like the 6 or so other anglers didnt get a touch while I was there. A few cruisers but not as many as last month. Water was very clear but warm.

That's not sounding terribly encouraging...

I might go and catch some tench instead.