Off The Mark
The final day of February but the first day of South West Lake Trust Rainbow trout season.
It was a early start and a lovely early morning drive across a very frosty but sunny Bodmin moor on way to Siblyback reservoir.
I reached the waters edge about 8.30 armed with my 6 weight rod and a Cortland 444 peaches & cream floating line, the waters surface way very calm with the occasional fish moving far out of reach, my first fly choice was a powder pink baby doll and after casting long range and covering about 750m of bank without any interest it was time to make a fly change, I tied on a beaded blob and carried on covering the next 500m of bank.
The cold air had started to lift, but still no interest being shown and now I was starting to meet and speak to other anglers all with the same story, very little action so far.
Time for a quick coffee and a rethink on the way forward, I decided to change the line for a Cortland intermediate and snake fly.
I started off fishing an area with a nice drop off into slightly deeper water, again long range cast and counting down the fly for 12 seconds, this with a very slow retrieve and the rod bent over and my first fish on, this was a very hard take with the fish taking to the air a few times giving me a few nervous moments, I kept a strong hard pressure on the fish to make sure the barbless hook stayed put, it wasn’t long before my first 2025 Rainbow was in the net.
The fish was in stunning condition and was soon followed by a few others all between 1lb and 2lb 12oz, all on the same method and fly, at this point I thought I would give the new Cortland hover line a try my reasoning was it was a little later in the day the wind had dropped leaving a flat water surface with fish nose & tailing fairly close in, I added to the length my leader tippet to a total of 10ft tapered leader 4ft Cortland 9.6lb ultra premium tippet, a fab on the point and two muskins on the droppers, casting shorter cast ahead of moving fish and doing very little other than keeping contact with my flies, it wasn’t long and the line pull sharply through my fingers and another hard fighting fish to the net followed by 4 more around the 2 & half pounds taking the muskins nymphs.
So all in all a very successful first day on the Trout, I am looking forward to fishing the other SWLT lakes over the next couple months and with fishing this good its proving to be good value and leaving you with loads of smiles at the end of the day, I would really recommend giving it a try.
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