Fishery Reports April 10th 2006

Rutland Water On Friday John Smith from Ryhall, near Stamford took 8 fish, all rainbows for 21lb 8oz from the Normanton bank, blue pipes area. He used an intermediate line, black and green gold head. Season ticket holders John Wotherspoon and Brian Flack, recorded some top quality fish off the boats with John taking a superb 8lb 4oz hen brown and another of 4lb 5oz among 14 other rainbows weighing 41lb 5oz shared with his boat partner Brian. Notable browns included Sheffield’s Mike Barratt (5lb 11¼oz) and Leicestershire’s Tug Lawson (5lb 1oz). Over wintered fish have been showing steadily other than the browns the best taken was by Oakham’s Rick Broome (season ticket holder) a 5lb 4oz rainbow. Anglers have remarked on the size and quality of this year’s stock fish, there have been many taken between 2½ and 3lb, with a number of limits weighing over 20lb. 5,000 fish will be stocked this week, including 2,000 browns. Settled weather will increase the action with fish feeding hard on daphnia and small buzzers.

Grafham Water On Saturday Grafham Water hosted the fish off for the Trout Masters competition. All of last year’s captors of big fish were invited back to battle out for the honour of representing Grafham Water at the UK finals at Grafham on Monday 15 May. All the competitors knew that it was going to be a hard match fished from the bank.

Halfway through the 6 hour match only one fish had been caught by our very own Mark Lindsey from the Harbour Arm. At 3 o’clock, in overcast conditions, the anglers left in Gaynes Cove found the fish came on the feed and it was a battle of the big guns between Iain Barr and Robert Edmunds. Both anglers were neck and neck, Iain taking a fish on the last cast to secure victory by 10oz over past Trout Masters Champion Robert Edmunds. Iain took 7 fish for 13lb 3oz to Robert’s 6 fish for 12lb 9oz. Mark Lindsey took the best fish of the day, a cracking 4lb 1oz rainbow.

Pitsford Water Richard Webb of Irchester visited Pitsford on Friday. The cold weather didn’t spoil a great day’s fishing he took 6 rainbows, the best went 4lb 8oz and he returned 10 fish. Higham Ferrers held a match at Pitsford on Saturday, again the cold weather didn’t stop them having a great day. Martin Peat took top spot. 6 fish 13lb 1oz. In second place was Kevin Hughes, 5 fish for 13lb 10oz. Third place went to Mark Frost with 4 fish for 11lb 2oz. Mark also took best fish with a superb brown of 5lb 3oz. Top method at the moment is red buzzer on the point with a black buzzer on the dropper 16 feet leader on a floating line. Also worth a go is sinking line, black and green lure or damsel or an orange blob.

Ravensthorpe Reservoir There have been some quality fish taken this week. Ashley Cooper caught the biggest fish– a 12lb 13oz rainbow, with a diawl bach near the domes. Jeff Osbourne of Brown Hills, boat fishing the causeway with a black buzzer, took a 9lb 6oz rainbow. The journey from Paisley proved very worthwhile for Barry Lapin who took a super rainbow of 10lb 9oz from a boat with a blue green lure. Jim Hoey of Duston returned a rainbow of 10lb 2oz. Alistair Clark, visiting from Edinburgh, boat fished with a black buzzer to take an 8lb 3oz rainbow. Some fish are still falling to lures. Buzzers GRHE and diawl bachs are catching the lure. Best areas are the shallow water (less than 10 feet), with nymphs fished very slowly. The bung is working well.

Barnsfold Water Chipping Fishing has continued to be good over the past week with plenty of good sized fish being taken best fish S Burgess 7lb 3oz taken on a black gnat best bag C South 12 fish on various flies
small lures are catching most fish, mainly because most people are using them rather than buzzers etc. Anglers fishing buzzers are catching just as many fish. Fishing should continue to get better with a rise in the water temperature. We need some warm nights and a south westerly wind. Further details Tel Frank Casson 01995 61583

Rivers Ribble, Hodder, Calder and Aire. On both the Hodder and Ribble cormorants have been seen just after dawn. 5 counted on the Sawley to Grindleton length of the Ribble. 7 sighted on the EA water downstream of Mitton in the Hodder Foot area. Water temperatures are very low just the odd brown trout being caught on weighted nymph's or north country wet flies. Good river levels and flow rates.11 mink trapped on the Edisford Hall fishing, where there are still some rods available at £350-00 a season.The occasional day permits at £25-00 Tel 07779-473798

Coarse fishing Hollowell Richard Sears from Leicestershire visited
Hollowell during the week and was rewarded with a personal best
perch of 3lb 3oz. Richard feeder fished lob worm to catch this superb fish. The hybrids have also been showing. Fish to just over 4lb have been landed. Feeder fished maggots at range is the key. The tench have finally started to feed and Gary Ashwell of Leicestershire landed a 7lb 4oz tench over the weekend and a hybrid of 2lb plus.

Taverham During the last two weeks include new season ticket holder Rob Carter taking 7 tench over a weekend. Adam Sadd had a 15lb 13oz mirror. 24 Hour season ticket holder P Knights had Carp of 17 and 19lb. Gavin Buck landed a 27lb 15oz common. This is the largest common to come out of the lake that we know of, putting Gavin, who had the lake record last year, in the enviable position of having two lake records to his name. New season ticket holder James Burdett managed to bank a 15lb mirror and Mick Ashford from Kent a 19lb 4oz mirror. This last week has seen some good tench and bream coming out of the Ski Pit to anglers braving the ‘winter’ conditions. On Taverham lake the action has steadied with the frosty conditions. Sport should improve by midweek with the rising temperatures.

New Angling Publication

The latest issue of NorthWest Angler is now on sale in the news agents or from your tackle shop. At £1-20 its value for money with features covering fresh and saltwater fly fishing. Big fish angling for the coarse fish species, in depth look at sea angling. Tackle talk, fishery news and much more. Editor Alan Barnes and his team must be congratulated on a good angling newspaper for Northwest Anglers