24th April: Water clear, bright sun early on with cool wind. I arrived after 9. By 9.30 met two who had already bagged up on Orange boobies, nice fish though!
Several were just throwing boobies as far as they could and waiting for the fish to pick them up. Hey ho I guess they enjoyed their day?
The boats gradually got to the far end by midday and mainlydrifted about 40 yds off the bank. ( more about boats later).They took a steady stream of fish to orange stickflies or anything similar. No fish close in or on the surface, locals say they the constant barrage of lures has driven them too far out.
No boats free so moved to opposite the lodge late afternoon. One angler had double bagged to 6lbs so I relented to small whisky fly at about 4pm. Fished 5 -6 ft down on intermediate. Three fish to 4lbs, so it was a goodish end to the day.
My tip if you want to fish off or near the top is to book a boat until the fish merchants move on. I hear that there are only a handful of season ticket holders, so from mid May to end of June it should be cracking. All lovely fish in great condition, fighting fit, had big arm ache with the 4 pounder. Many reports of leader smashes, one was on 8lbs!
As this was my first trip here for many long years, I have a suggestion for Wessex Water. The majority of anglers were past middle age, of those over 50% were retired. These are the fishermen who keep such waters going especially during weekdays. However, there were many who could not get to fish and were leaving quite despondent. Like my recent trips to Sutton Bingham, many were picking up their rods after 10 or 20 yrs. It was very evident that they may never come back even though they saw many fish caught. What is the point of paying for a ticket when the fish are out of reach?
My proposal would be to have no lure/ max fly size zones, controversial yes and I can hear the comments already. This is a large water and could quite easily accomodate one or two zones to allow for weather conditions.
I would also ask that boats respect the distances from bank anglers. I am not anti boat, I use them myself, but I had boats within 10yds of me and one of the reasons I moved before things turned ugly.
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