The result was anything but spectacular

For my next trip I was much more geared to fishing “summer” methods as we felt that the amount of natural food in the lake, and the fact that generally it has been such a mild winter, would mean that our usual early season tactics were redundant. I fished with near neighbour Geoff Lambert and, though there was still an overnight frost, the day boded well. We were both in agreement as to where to start – the spit off Denny Island, and we had various teams of buzzers and nymphs on our intermediate or slime lines. The result was anything but spectacular. As on my previous trip the trout just did not want to oblige. All of the boats on the lake were moving about and those containing fishermen that we knew all told the same story. No fish and almost no response full stop! I was not too worried as, on the previous visit, fish seemed to come on to feed more in the afternoon than the morning. We noticed one angler catch a few fish and when his boat went past us to start his drift again I realised that it was Gareth Jones who was the successful fisherman. I told Geoff that as Gareth had fished in our Bristol team in my absence – the year that I was in New Zealand, I knew him well and predicted that he was using a very fast sinking line and some bright lures. We motored over to chat to him and his partner when we had finished our drift. Gareth was using a DI-7 with a leaded red and black tadpole as his best fly, and a sparkler which was also producing fish. He said that he had had about 8 or 9 fish by then and we certainly saw him manage another ten, so he certainly had something right.You can imagine that Geoff and I changed to a fast sinker pretty quickly. Theories out of the window again! Gareth was using one of those “fish-finders”, not to find fish, but to check that he was fishing over water of about 20 foot in depth. He was getting most of his fish as the line curved up as he retrieved it from the bottom. If you are new to boat fishing this is an aspect that you must learn to develop, as that curving movement seems to be crucial to consistently catching trout on sinking lines. With renewed enthusiasm Geoff and I set to it again. Soon Geoff had a rainbow and then a well-marked brownie that he sportingly returned. My luck didn’t seem to be on the mend! Next drift however I caught two trout – both taking the size 12 diawl bach that I had on the middle dropper.Back up for the next drift I caught a brownie, which I too returned, and another two rainbows. I was catching by fishing my flies ultra slowly – figure of eight style, though one of them came “on the hang”. With a sudden increase of drifting boats in that area (to about a dozen!) things went quiet, so Geoff and I opted for a move over to the dam which hadn’t had much attention from boats since the first hour. I managed to hook the bottom and lose my team of flies. The top dropper and the leader to my fly-line was all that I was left with. I remembered one chap that I spoke to on opening day saying that he caught a load of fish drifting along the dam using boobies, so being lazy (I would like to say thinking) I just tied on a booby. Spectacularly, I caught three fish in the next fifteen minutes, the first being a beautiful three and a half pound brownie. The fish here were feeding seriously on bloodworm! Why on earth should they take such a ridiculous fly as a booby?Geoff took a trout on his sinking line – to a diawl bach, but again it went quiet. I went back on the floater and very soon caught a decent rainbow on a superglue buzzer. We capped the day off in fine style by finding a couple of rising fish and having the first fish of the season on dries!It is a good job that we don’t get too carried away by our theories as my first two trips of the season have shown that it really doesn’t pay to be too dogmatic in approach. One thing is for certain at Chew at the moment: the fish are feeding on buzzers, bloodworm and daphnia as if there is no tomorrow. The anglers who work out where the fish are and consistently put their flies in front of them – as Gareth managed to do, will have great sport. We have been blessed with mild weather throughout the winter and that looks like having put the trout well ahead of their usual development. Take advantage of that and catch some feeding fish by using nymphs and buzzers that look like the naturals. If all else fails then be sure to try lures at different levels too. Tight lines,

Martin Cottis