I was offered membership of a syndicate in my area that comprises a trout lake and a coarse lake. The majority of the members fish the trout lake leaving the coarse lake almost unfished. This appealed to me and I will report on the coarse lake later.

So this was the opportune time to try fly fishing.

I had been on a course a few years ago, and another one this year at Rutland Water, but I needed to acquire some decent fly fishing tackle. I ordered this once my membership had been confirmed, and this was my first visit to the water.

Click image to view larger version.

This first trip was as much about practising my casting as anything else. I started with a buzzer working at about 6 ft under the surface but there was no easy success. There were signs of fish and I cast at disturbances where fry were scampering, but to no avail. I tried different flies, including larger ones that could imitate small fish, but not a touch. I also roamed the lake in case it was a location issue, but again it didn’t yield any results. I also tried a small dry fly but this was attacked by small roach. Interestingly the roach also pursued vigorously the wet flies as I finished the retrieve through the shallows, so it wasn’t as if the flies weren’t appearing like food!

I fished on to about 17.30 but I had this feeling that I wasn’t going to succeed, and needed to seek some advice from other members as to my approach. I thought that perhaps I needed to try a sinking line and fish deeper.

P.S. I contacted the member who proposed my membership and he said that the lake often doesn’t fish so well in July and August. Also, when I visited the coarse lake the following week, I checked the catch returns in the Lodge and only one person had caught. He had mentioned on the return that the fish were taken on the bottom.