Nick Moore | Wednesday, 10 November 2021
A short 4-hour fishing session last weekend proved to be most enjoyable, with 4 fish to the net. I haven’t been for a long time (over a month!) which has mostly been down to work commitments as well as a special project (more on this later), so it was long overdue.
Having looked at the catch returns, it was evident that the lakes were not fishing very well, which was puzzling, as fellow anglers mentioned that the fish were healthy and feeding on natural aquatic life quite happily.
Now, the weather consisted of bright sunlight, blue skies and a relatively warm temperature and quite windy. This set off a decent buzzer hatch, so i took out my new(ish) HT4 with a Scientific Anglers mastery trout #4 floater, and tied on a team of three buzzers/nymphs. A tapered leader was used first to ensure clean turnover, and the nymphs were spaced 3’ 3’ and 5’.
Top dropper; Blakeston’s black buzzer #12
Middle dropper; black and white buzzer #12
Point; Bloodworm (red buzzer) #12
Well, the first thing to do was to find the fish! Some were rising initially, but the hatch died down, and the surface turned to glass after some pretty strong wind. After fishing these lakes for a long time, you get to know where to fish, and where to avoid. I believe that the lack of fish being caught is down to not moving around, and using tackle that is very heavy.
Casting to rising fish proved to be very fruitful, with some really aggressive snatches and hook-ups. The average trout size I had was about 3lb, which took after a slow figure of 8. The other fish I had later on were much subtler. I had to watch the end of the true to weight #4 line to see the takes, strangely it was always a tiny movement to the left. If I was fishing with an overweight line, or even a ‘standard’ #7 outfit, then I wouldn’t have even noticed those takes.
My last fish was caught by casting quite a way out, as I could see a disturbance on the water, around 80-85’ from the water’s edge. This was really hard as the banks behind this spot have not been looked after, and the back-cast room was very minimal. A jump roll was used, but the line kept getting snagged in the weeds and high reeds etc, but I did manage to get in a good handful of casts which always produced a take, and finally a fish. This was the exception, but the fish do get pushed out from the bank, as they seem to know how to get out of range.
Now, onto my project! I have been working on a Dalek for a good 7 months, and it’s almost finished. I just need to paint the base section (I added the aluminium angle on the Saturday) and add the seat and knee bar (which has been built). It is complete with a voice modulator that automatically flashes the dome lights, and has been quite a challenging prop to build. Sourcing the materials and period hardware such as BSW machine screws and bolts took an enormous amount of time. For those of you that are interested, it is from Genesis of the Daleks which was broadcast in 1975, staring Tom baker. It is mostly made up of MDF, fibreglass and ply, with a few bits and pieces made up of plastic, aluminium and acrylic.
Well that’s it for now, I will just close with ‘EXTERMINATE!’
All the best
Nick
