June Fishing Report
Although the majority of the mayfly have come and gone, we still have the pleasure of seeing the zig zag flight of a few who remain. Mayfly nymphs and dry fly still graced the leader of many anglers, hoping to fool that wary brown trout lingering underneath the willow tree.
The fishery saw some really fantastic fish caught this month, with plenty of fish of 6lb and over;
Mr Hall (8lb brown), Mr Clarke (8lb 4oz rainbow), Mr Leppard (7lb 8oz brown), Mr Bromwich (7lb 8oz rainbow), Mr Sharpe (7lb 4oz rainbow), Mr Hazleton (7lb 8oz rainbow), Mr Frankham (6lb 12oz and 5lb 4oz), Mr Chesham (7lb rainbow), Mr Towse (7lb 8oz), Mr Laver (6lb 8oz), K. Mould (6lb 80z), Mr Clarke (6lb 8oz and 5lb 4oz) and many others.
Flies for this months have mainly been of the natural patterns, including; black buzzers (size 12), red diawl bachs, montanas, mayfly (nymphs and dries), daddies (floating and subsurface), stalking bugs, When All Else Fails and blue flash damsels. However, people have still been catching well on the ‘nasties’ and ‘dead budgies’, including orange blobs, white and green lures and orange tadpoles. Our fly selection has been updated and restocked in the fishing lodge, ranging from small nymphs and dries to big lures and egg flies, tapered leaders, tippet spools and some very humorous birthday cards!
Malcolm and myself are always kept busy on the fishery, fish farm and river. We have recently moved out our fry from the raceways out into one of our larger ‘grow-on’ ponds, and received some quality batches of fry to replace them! The raceways are cleaned before the fry are placed in, and clockwork feeders (which works similar to a conveyor belt) have received some cleaning and maintenance and are back out to provide the fry with consistent amount of quality feed. We have also been delivering our larger fish to various beats of the River Test, the Whitewater and other club lakes.
Both lakes and the fish farm are receiving a fair amount of trimming and tidying, with many evenings spent with a hedge-trimmer in hand when the anglers have left. This is also the case on the 2.5 miles of our river banks which gets topped and edged, a some overhanging branches cut back to help with access and casting. We see many lovely 1, 2 and 3 year cohort grayling dart up and down the river when we take the mower down, and notice many little rings from subtle rises in the evenings.
Just a little side note; our current water temperature is at 9°C, and our water temperature during the hot summer of 2018 did not raise above 15ºc. This means that our lakes stay at a very comfortable temperature for our fish and happily fish right throughout the summer!
Tight lines and hope to see many of you in the near future,
Fen
