Sport: turbulent week weather wise with the bulk of the week written off due to gale force winds! On the few days the weather let up the fishing has been pretty good.

Bell Point and Bens beach seems to be the place to be either from the bank or an anchored boat. A few fish still come to nymphs on a floater, but its them Boobies that are coming in to their own! Mark Wilson can’t seem to do any wrong consistently landing 4 plus fish all on short sessions! Marks choice set up is an intermediate line with two orange blob boobies’ fished ultra slow.

Black fritz patterns are working well to with a floater been enough if the lure has a gold head.

To sum it up any break in the weather and the fishing is great even on a rough day find some shelter and you will be into fish!

BANKHOUSE

There are still numerous double figure fish been caught with small beaded bloodworms fished static doing the job. On the lure front cats whiskers retrieved slowly back from the islands are enough to tempt a good few fish.

Stocks regulars Mick and Ken Whiteside had a good session made all the more interesting when they spotted not one but three otters! That’s a rare treat and one to look out for hopefully they may be residents at the pretty small water.

Stocks: November 5^th - 12^th.

The fishing has picked up over the course of the week, in the better more clement conditions diawl bachs fished back ultra slowly on floating lines has produced some good catches. Whilst on the windier days lures have scored best. Top rod was Frank Hartley with seven trout from around Bell Point and Ben’s Beach. Frank has visited us three times over the last fortnight, during which he has caught a very respectable 23 trout. Frank has developed his own style of fishing and when the going gets tough he often continues to score well. He generally fishes a Di5 or a Di3 sinking line; on his top dropper he will then put a small buoyant fly such as a sugar lump buzzer on the middle dropper a gold head nymph and on the point another sugar lump buzzer. He then varies the speed of a figure of eight retrieve until he starts to get takes. Give it a try, it works well for Frank especially as he has caught all these fish on half day tickets!  Another very consistent angler at the moment is Mark Wilson. Mark visits us twice a week also on a half day ticket and over the last fortnight he has averaged four fish a visit. Mark favoured method at the moment is two small cats boobies fished back slowly on a long leader on an intermediate line. The pick of the days this week was probably Saturday. Despite the awful weather the rod average was 3.8 from the bank and 2.0 from the boats. John Legg took four nice trout in a few hours on diawl bachs band Roy Dickinson took five trout, including a stunning fully finned 5lb rainbow that tore line off his reel. Roy caught most of them on a black fritz around Bell Point and Hartley’s. Today (Wednesday 12^th) we didn’t have any boats out but the anglers caught well from the shore and ended up with a three fish rod average. The best areas are Bell point, Ben’s Beach, Hollins and The Alders and from the boats Curry’s Cast and Willow Island.

Bank House November 5^th - 12^th.

Bank House is currently fishing really well. The rod average for the week is 4 fish per man. The best catch was taken by David Harrison from Lytham who caught a staggering 23 trout. David kept on the move fishing all round the lake and worked the water with white beaded buzzers and damsels on a floating line. We’ve had two doubles caught this week; the first was a rainbow of 10lb 6oz and was caught by Mr J K Lowrie on a home tied fox fur lure and the was a rainbow of 11lbs which fell to a black n green fritz  fished by Mr Croft from Blackburn. The best patterns have been zonkers, minkies, buzzers and egg flies.

Tight lines Ben

Tuesday November 4^th

It was a very quiet day on the fishery today with just two half day bank anglers taking to the water. However they both had good sport with fish in the net and a few pulls to keep them attentive. Top rod was Rob Barton with 4 trout. He tried fishing lures on various sinking lines with no success and it wasn’t until he switched to a floater with a team of tradition wets that he started to get the action. Bibio was the best pattern and his only regret was not fishing them earlier! Tight Lines Ben

Sunday November 2^nd.

Today we hosted the Rio4’s championship. This competition is fished by teams of four from all over the U.K. It is very generously sponsored by Guide Fly Fishing Supplies who are the UK distributors for many leading brands including Rio, Vision, Reddington, C&F Design, Lamson and much more. With their help we were able to provide over £1700 worth of tackle prizes and vouchers.

The weather was cold with a thin northerly breeze and it was bright for the most part. It has to be said that this turned out to be the toughest fishing competition that I have held in my thirteen years of running Stocks. There a few fish caught early doors and it looked as though, although tough, you would be able to build a bag. But it was just as if someone had flicked a switch and turned the fished off and many anglers fished the day through with just a few pulls to their name. However some competitors did manage to catch and each fish became extremely valuable and could easily move you up the prizes. The top individual was Peter Kirk who landed four fine trout on a black n green fritz booby. Peter fished this fly on a long leader on a Di3 sinking line and caught most of his fish from Hollins bay. Due to the long leader his fly probably wasn’t very far down at all. The best fish went to Hywel Morgan who landed a beautiful 3lb 9oz rainbow on nymphs. Hywel, and others, had to return brown that didn’t count in this competition. The Team results were as follows:

1^st Place and winners of an £800 tackle voucher.

Team Enterprise: Peter Kirk, Colin Gibbons, Tony Taylor and Frank Hartley

2^nd Place and winners of a £400 tackle voucher.

The Ospreys: Paul Davison, Hywel Morgan, Ian Jones and Steve Smalley.

3^rd Place and winners of four Vision Koma Fly Reels.

The Toprod: Stephen Edmondson, Neil Raistrick, Richard Hardman and Kieth McAdam

4^th Place and winners of four RIO fly lines.

The Rainbow Warriors: Alec Mcewan, Kenny Miller, Tom Bonar and Robert Miller.

Well Done to all and lets hope the sport picks up. Tight Lines Ben.

This week the sport has improved as the weather has become more settled. Today (Friday) the fishing was good from both the bank and the boat. The best tactics were lures, such as black fritz, or fry patterns, such as minkies and humongous, fished with an ultra slow retrieve on intermediate or sink tip lines. The trout have been feeding close to the bottom over most of the shallow areas of the reservoir and around the margins. The hotspots have been from Hollins Bay to Ben’s Beach; close in from Davy Jones to Grindy’s Lawn, Willow Island, The Northern Shallows, the southern end of Gull Island and Curry’s Cast. Hope to see you on the water. Tight lines Ben