Fly Fishing Reports

Peter Mathews 22lb brace

Date      Saturday 28th February 2009
Report by   Pete
Best Catch   27 fish by Peter Mathews
Best Bag Weighed in   5 fish for 29lb by Peter Mathews
Best Rainbow     13lb 0oz by Peter Mathews
Bank Average   4.69 per angler
Boat Rod Average   5.19 per angler
Sport: Today started with heavy cloud and drizzle, but this soon cleared and left a slight ripple and mild conditions perfect for fishing. The story today is about two father and son combinations. On the boat Peter Mathews and son had a bumper catch of 27 fish,  including a brace of 22lb with two rainbows of 13lb and 9lb (pictured above) and a five fish limit of 29lb. They had the majority of their fish from the Northern Shallows and Phil’s Flats on Minkies and Zonkers the 13lb Monster fell to a pink Minkie stripped back at high speed. When asked Peter said they were fishing a slow retrieve and getting a lot of knocks so decided to speed it up. When they did the fish really started to hook up.  Great angling lads. From the bank it was a father and son again.  With the top catches of the day, regulars Malcolm and Jim Hunter had 10 and 11 fish respectively all from Newclose bay.They were  on two totally different methods.  Malcolm found diawl bachs on a floating line worked for him whereas Jim favoured a cormorant on an slow intermediate line for his fish. With catches like these it looks like its going to be a cracking week ahead. Tight lines Pete

Report by                         Matthew
Best Catch                         17 fish for John Forster
Best Bag Weighed in      5 fish for 21lb Dave O’Gradey
Best Rainbow                   12lb 4oz Dave O’Gradey
Bank Average                  2.78
Boat Rod Average         10.40
Sport: It doesn’t get much better than this! I have had 4 boats come in with 20 plus fish!! I can keep the tactics short and sweet, Black and Green is doing all the work be it Fritz patterns or even boobies. Lines to be on are Di 3’s and Intermediates. The areas to be are still the northern shallows, be it Phil’s flats or around Willow. I did notice that a lot of fish have come from the bottom of Gull Island and that Ben Baylis and Adam Larbalester were picking up fish over deeper waters about 50 yards out from Willow Island.
John Forster takes the top rod honours today with a staggering 17 fish, using the exact tactics as above. Not far behind was Dave O’Gradey with 15 fish including a lovely rainbow of 12lb 4oz.
On the bank thing have been a little quieter although Steve Cowperthwaite had 12 trout from Newclose on his own tied green buzzer, Steve’s buzzer has a short green marabou tail, although it sounds odd he swears by it and consistently does well with it to boot!

Very tight lines Matt.

Dave o'Grady 12lb 4oz Rainbow

Date                             Thursday 26th February 2009
Report by                     Matthew
Best Catch                   11 fish for John Calvert
Best Bag Weighed in   5 fish for 12lb 4oz Paul Kitchen
Best Rainbow               5lb Ray Mercer
Bank Average               7.2
Boat Rod Average        3.0
Sport:   Newclose bay was the place to be today. John Calvert took top boat honours with 11 hard fighting trout to the net. John found the fish keen to hit green and black mini lures fished slowly on a Di3 line. Although the majority of the catch came from Newclose Bay The Northern Shallows was still a productive spot.
Any bank angler who fished Newclose today was in for some good sport! Brendan Ginty had 10 fish all falling for black and green fritz, and just a few yards along the shore was Bob Blatchford who took 7 fish on his black lures too. Both guys were fishing slowly on intermediate lines.
Ray Entwistle proved that fish were still holding well down in Hollins with 8 to his black and green fritz.
One thing is for sure you just have to have black and green in your box!
Tight lines Matt

Date:     February 18th to 25th Report by Ben
Best Rainbow    13lbs for Mr J Waghorn
Heaviest 4 fish    13lbs 4oz Mr D McAllister
Best Catch (No. Fish)    19 trout for Mr David Harrison
Rod Average    3.7 fish per man

Sport: Bank House has fished well over the last week. The stats above don’t really show the full story as there has been a lot of big fish returned on sporting tickets. We have been getting quite a few over-wintered brownies caught and returned, the best of which was estimated around the14lb mark. Lytham’s ever consistent Mr David Harrison took the best catch of the week with 19 trout. David kept on the move working his way around the fishery with a cat’s whisker fished on an intermediate line. On this day (24th) the fish were in the mood for chasing and it was a fast strip retrieve that did most damage. Joe Spence from Lancaster used a similar method to take 16 trout just a few days earlier.
As the water in Bank House turns over every 48hrs or so, it responds very quickly to changes in the weather and the water temperature can fluctuate quite considerably over the course of a week. This means that the trout’s behaviour changes too so it important to vary your retrieve and the depth that your flies are fishing until you find the killer method. Last week in the calm conditions we even had some great catches on small black dries! I will be stocking some more specimens before the weekend so the sport should be exciting. Finally Ken Whiteside also had a good catch last week, he took 15 fine trout on a fly he calls the bugs bunny. I have no idea what that looks like so “that’s all folks” tight lines Ben

Date      Wednesday 25th February 2009
Report by   Pete
Best Catch   14 fish by Mark Chippendale
Best Bag Weighed in       14lb 8oz Mike Williams
Best Rainbow       6lb by Mr Billington
Bank Average  3.66 fish
Boat Rod Average 3.73 fish
Sport: The wind today certainly hampered presentation and made the fishing a little trickier than it has been. Mike Williams certainly found a method that worked, he fished Newclose Bay to good effect landing 8 fish with 5 trout tipping the scales to 14lb 8oz. Brian Gaskell landed five fish for 12lb unfortunately neither angler revealed their methods. From the boats  regular Mark Chippendale had a 14 fish bonanza all from the Northern Shallows Mark said he started off with a black and green buzzer and was straight into the fish but as the wind picked up he switched to a black and green fritz and really got in amongst them. Good angling in tricky conditions. The Northern Shallows and Phil’s Flats are still producing the fish from the boats and the key seems to be in the retrieve, a slow figure eight or draw is doing the damage. Tight lines Pete

Date    Tuesday February 24th
Report by                      Matt
Best Catch                      20+ Paul Bebb
Best Bag Weighed in   5 fish for 22lb 8oz Conrad O’Neil
Best Rainbow                13lb 12oz Conrad O’Niel (2  fish estimated at around 14lbs were returned)
No. Doubles                   3
Bank Average                2.00
Boat Rod Average        9.80
Sport: Another fantastic day! Unfortunately I was in the lodge and chomping at the bit to get out there again! Anglers were still catching well on the lures with black and green standing out once again. John Sutton and Doug Oldfield had a fantastic session with 20 fish to their boat. John loves to get the fish chasing and he did just that with 13 of them falling for a stripped orange blob on an intermediate line. Their hot spot was right along the northern shallows. Doug found the fish just as keen to take cormorants with a steady retrieve.
Well if there is anyone who can start the buzzer action on Stocks it’s Paul Bebb! Paul was out on the water with Jimmy Brown; between them they had over 30 fish to the boat!
Jimmy had most of his action early on straight lining buzzers; both Paul and Jimmy fished the washing line too with fish coming to both the cat’s booby and buzzers respectively. Willow Island and the Northern Shallows was once again the place to be! In amongst Paul’s 20 fish was a specimen rainbow of  around 14lbs. Paul wasn’t the only one into big fish today Conrad O’Neil tempted a lovely rainbow of 13lb 12oz to make up a five fish bag of some 22lb 8oz! Conrad found an Orange fritz lure fished slowly on a floater did the trick.
Steve Cowperthwaite took top rod honours from the bank, Steve fished the shallow waters of Newclose bay, Steve favours nymph and buzzer patterns and will consistently catch on buzzers from day one of the season. He finished the day with 7 fine trout in the net, more that were briefly on and off and tonnes of offers.
Fantastic sport across the board once again, scores of 8 plus fish from the boats were pretty common.
My advice would be to take a boat and head for the northern shallows with a floating line with a team of buzzers either fished on their own or indeed with a small booby just to keep everything up in the water!
Tight lines Matt

Report by Ben     Date: Monday February 23rd
Best Rainbow      16lbs+ Frank Hartley
Best Catch           14 trout for Matt Taylor
Best Bag               4 trout  for 13lbs Mr Lowry and Mr Thomlinson
Bank Rod Av      3.44 fish per man
Boat Rod Av      7.42 fish per man
No. Doubles       2

Sport: It was great day for fishing today. It was overcast and the strong winds of yesterday were long gone leaving a light ripple and mild air temperatures that gave you the feeling spring is on its way. It wasn’t just us humans that were taking advantage of the conditions either the birds were in heightened activity and there were good hatches of chironomid (buzzers) over most of the shallow areas on the reservoir. Normally at this time of year we would expect the emerging buzzers to be mainly short black flies but today they were a good size and predominantly olive in colour. To the newly stocked trout this food source is still a very new phenomenon and some trout must still be to discover them, but many have started to feed on them and over the next few days we are expecting to a lot more fish taken on buzzers and nymphs. However today it was the lures that took the lion’s share of the catches. Matt and his cousin David took a boat out for a six hour session. They headed straight for the northern end of the reservoir and started fishing at Phil’s Flats. Matt started on a Di3 sinker with black and green lures and was quickly amongst the fish and soon had four nice trout in the boat. After a quiet spell he switched to an SSI line and a two boobies washing line cast with a nymph in the middle. This turned out to be the killer method and they both enjoyed fantastic sport over the next couple of hours. They landed 20 trout between them including a 10lb rainbow that ran Matt ragged. Their tips to visiting angers are as follows: If it goes quiet move even if it’s just a short distance, keep the retrieve slow whether pulling the flies or figure of eighting and finally fish the hang as it accounted for a lot of their catch. Also out on a boat was Paul Kitchen. Paul was fishing a similar area especially around Willow Island. He found success on a midge tip line and sunburst blobs used this set up to tempt thirteen trout.
On the shore it was Hollins Bay that produced the best sport, top rod was Philip Davies with nine fish but I’m unsure how he was fishing. Hot on his heels was Frank Hartley with eight trout. Frank fished his way around Hollins Bay to Bell Point where he connected with a very big fish. The fight that followed attracted two other anglers that had been fishing near by and when Frank successfully landed it they estimated its weight to be a conservative 16lbs. It was then released to fight another day. Frank was fishing buoyant buzzers on a sinking line with a slow retrieve.
The weather tomorrow looks perfect, its mild, overcast and the wind is very light…………..buzzer city!
Tight lines Ben Dobson

Sport: It was windier today, and this determined where the anglers could fish comfortably. Not surprisingly, this had the biggest effect on the boat fishing. Yesterday most of the boats fished over the northern shallows but today the rough conditions made most anglers look for shelter elsewhere. However, the boats that braved the conditions and stayed in this area recorded the biggest catches. Mike Gadd and Dermot Speight were the top boat with 13 trout to the net. They both fished with slow sinking intermediate lines, two orange blobs and a slow figure of eight retrieve. They lost count of how many tugs and pulls they had but every now and then one would stick and come to the boat. Steve Bland was also catching on a similar retrieve in a similar area but this time on a Di3 sinker. Steve was using a washed out pink blob which he was counting right down and tweaking along the bottom. Going against the grain was Total Fly Fisher’s Graham Herbert. Graham started out on lures whilst fishing at the causeway; he had no success so he switched to a floating and tied on a team of buzzers. Even though there was a big wave on the water it wasn’t long before his line tightened and he connected with a lively rainbow. He took five on buzzers and two more on a small glister damsel.

On the shore it was Newclose Bay that once again produced the goods. Pete Whittle and Frank Green were in this area they both fish slow sinking intermediate lines, Pete fished a small sunburst fritz lure to eight fine trout and Frank fished a small black chain beaded pattern to take seven. In Hollins Bay father and son team Ken and Elliot Horrocks were having some great sport. They both fished a gold head Dawson’s olive on a floating line with a fast twitchy retrieve they took 14 trout and had many more pulls. The wind is due to drop off tomorrow, so hopefully the northern shallows will be more accessible for boat fishing. Tight Lines Ben

More Video at the end of this report

Sport: What a cracking start to the season. We had great weather, a great turnout, great sport, there were seven doubles landed and three tagged trout were caught.

On the shore the best catches came from Newclose and Grindy’s Lawn but there were also some good catches from Hollins bay and the East bank. The fish have spread very quickly especially northwards along the west side of the reservoir to Newclose and Eaking Shallows. The best catch went to Paul Gaskell (video interview to follow). Paul fished Newclose Bay with a sink tip line and two weighted flies. He had a gold head viva on the point and a gold head hare’s ear on the dropper. He retrieved with a steady figure of eight and had arm aching action right from the start. Fishing along side him was Dave Gaskell who landed a belting 12lb 12oz rainbow to earn himself a place in the 2009 doubles club and his total bag weight was the best of the day. It weighed 22lbs 12oz for five fish and has earned him a 9ft 6” 7# SONIK fly rod.

The fishing in Hollins Bay was a bit patchy some anglers were catching well while others nearby were struggling for takes. Frank Hartley took 11 fine trout and lost several others in a half day session whilst fishing near Hollins Hurdle and later Paul Davison dropped into the same spot to take nine more. Both anglers fished midge tip lines, which definitely seemed to be the choice line from the bank. Frank fished a yellow dancer on the dropper and a black tadpole on the point, Paul fished unweighted nymphs and wets. The best fish of the day was a beautiful rainbow of 14lbs 7oz it was caught at two trees and was caught by local angler Anthony Hooley. (Picture to follow)

We had three tagged fish caught today. The 2^nd and 3^rd of the day were caught from the bank by Frank Hartley and John Williams who both received a Stocks vouchers worth £30. The 1^st of the day was caught by Peter Andrews whilst boat fishing near Willow Island, it was part of a very impressive 26 fish haul by Peter and his boat partner Stuart McCaughy. The tagged trout won Peter a Reddington CPS fly rod worth £260. Not to be out done Stuart landed the best fish which weighed 10lbs 5oz and by earning him a place in our doubles club it gives him a chance to win a season ticket for 2010. (video to follow)

On the whole he boats fished really well. We saw many boats catch more than twenty trout today and plenty of fish over 3lbs were taken. The best trout from the boats tipped the scales to 12lbs 8oz and was caught by David McAbe on a small black ally cat. (picture to follow) The most consistent methods were intermediate lines or slow sinkers with a variety of mini lures and boobies retrieved with a slow draw. The hang also accounted for more than its fair share of fish. Carl Nixon and Alec Bowler both took 17 trout, Carl’s best fly was a black n green lure fished on a midge tip whilst Alec used a fly called a monster on an intermediate. The top boat was Mr Dinning and Paul Moore who landed an amazing forty five fish on boobies. The Hot spots were The Northern Shallows, Willow Island, Newclose and Grindy’s Lawn.

The mild weather looks like its here to stay for the coming week so lets hope the great sport continues. Tight lines Ben Dobson

Stocks Reservoir is now fully stocked with 4000 trout they travelled really well and we have already observed some buzzer feeding down in the bay. We have stocked some beautifully marked and fully finned trout; there are loads of 3lbs plus fish and loads of doubles so the fishing should be good fun. The conditions are looking promising we have a westerly breeze and the air temperature is getting up to 9 degrees C. Remember if you catch one of our tagged trout you must bring the fish with the tag to the lodge in order to claim the prize. We will open the doors at 7.30am tomorrow by which time we should have plenty of bacon and sausages cooked up for breakfast. We hope you have a great season and enjoy all your time spent on the reservoir.
Tight Lines Ben, Matt & Pete.