Nick Moore | Wednesday, 29 December 2021
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! It’s become a family tradition to fish on Christmas Eve with dad, and it’s taken quite seriously. Interestingly, the weather was almost identical to last years, with fog being present in the morning, followed by nice weather a few hours after. Quite spectacular.
After arriving at the lakes, it was apparent that the fish were not close to the surface early on, because there were no rises or surface disturbances. Quite often I’ve mistaken a rise in the distance which turned out to be a small diving water bird, which is probably one of nature’s trolls! You make the journey to what you think is a trout, only to see a small water bird pop up 30’ in front of you.
The plan was to fish a team of flies on an intermediate line on the big lake, as it’s not really that deep compared to other fisheries, and there is still quite a bit of weed in it. Now, a prominent buzzer hatch occurred which made fly choice relatively simple. The plan was to fish an intermediate line with two buzzers on droppers, and a FAB on the point. The idea of the FAB was to keep the flies suspended above the weeds, whilst the intermediate line allowed me to fish deeper than a floating line.
This proved a very successful method with 2 fish to the net in quick succession. They were also quite old resident fish and not one of the freshly stocked ones, which was a promising start to the day. I then proceeded to move onto the other lake, which is a bit smaller but MUCH deeper, almost canyon like in it’s depth. It was now getting towards the afternoon which saw the fog being lifted, and the sun to appear. This brought the fish up, and you could see them topping quite regularly. I didn’t have to change to a floater, as the flies weren’t in the water long enough for the line to sink!
There was actually a shoal of trout some 100’ + from the bank, which was strange because there isn’t a drop off or any particular feature. My guess is that they had been pushed out there by other anglers, so my first tactic was to short line, and try and locate some fish further in and progressively add line, but this proved fruitless. Ok, out the flies go to those rising fish. It’s always important to observe and cover rising fish, where are they going, and what direction etc. It certainly didn’t take long, and I had tremendously aggressive take that almost took the rod out of my hand. A nice 3 pounder. Interestingly, if I was short by about 5’ then I didn’t get any takes whatsoever, which signified that they were tightly shoaled.
The best bit was saved until last, when I had 2 fish on at the same time. Unfortunately, the fish on the lower dropper came off and I landed the one on the top, so I ended up with 7 fish (total) in 3 hours. Quite a successful day over all. So what was the winning setup?
1. Intermediate line (Thunderbolt Lumi-line DT6)
2. 9’ Rio Powerflex 2x tapered leader to a tippet ring
3. 3’, 3’, 5’ team setup with the fab on the point and two #10 buzzers on the droppers. I space them like this to alleviate tangles.
This is actually quite a regular setup for me, and is very enjoyable to fish, well, until you get caught in a tree and loose 3 flies but that’s always part of it. For some reason the trout love jumping through the line and tangling the droppers together, but it’s all part of the fun!
I’ve also bought a new line and some other bits and pieces from Mike (Barrio). I’ve always wanted to try his new batch of lines, so the GT90 II #5 will be thrown down the tape as soon as it arrives.
Happy New Year and tight lines to you all!