After the never ending winter of dark skies, bitterly cold easterly winds and non stop rain -which we all needed to top up lakes ,water reserves and get springs flowing again spring has arrived with a lush green hedgerow of hawthorn ,ash, oak ,dogwood ,field maple and hazel -some flowering like the hawthorn now and good insect life coming out of it on the warmer days. Some early hawthorn hatches last week and the fish went crazy the first of the proper evening rises! Other flies just emerging now are daddies in abundance, sedge ,damsel tons of buzzers and 1 solitary dragonfly i have spotted.What is catching the fish is mainly buzzers but some great dry fly spot is also to be had but the patterns are small cdc emergers, parachute adams, black gnat and knotted midge as well as shipmans buzzer.
All species of trout and cracking specimen golden rudd to be had, the tigers are mainly on buzzers and micro dry fly like caenis size while the browns are mainly falling to black hoppers or black snakes and the rainbows and blues partial to damsels and montana but all goldens been caught on diawl bach.
Three springs lake catch and release end will close for trout fishing as always, when the water warms up in the margins too much for safe releases of trout but this year we will be doing some hybrid tenkara classes and also stalking with light gear sight fishing only the margins for these specimen golden rudd as last year they were recorded up to 3.5lbs on the fly but i have seen them here well over 4lbs nudging 5lbs really so am confident a British record is on site!
Last month we had some great orvis days here of tuition and another day of getting more ladies out fishing on the water with their 50/50 initiative which was a popular day with journalists from Pursuit International , The Field, Country and Townhouse , Shooting Times and Conservation Magazine and The Countrymans Weekly. Also the month before we featured in a great article in Pursuit International written by Kate Fensterstock about London trout fishing -so thanks to her and the magasines and Orvis Uk and Claire Zambuni of Zambuni PR for organizing.
So a busy time lots of fun , lakes are full and overflowing with crystal clear water , many have travelled long distance to fish us recently and thanks to Andrew from www.taffbargoedflies.co.uk for travelling a long way with a group to try us – they all had a blast and landed fish including a double figure brown but no tigers that day!
Kids are now coming out from all parts of the world to learn to catch a fish and its great to see sons and daughters with parents enjoying catching their dinner and great to get them away from computers and phones for a time! Some are put on the bbq straight away fresh as can be. New stocking arrives next week with lots of fish to carry us through the summer months where we will introduce many more beginners and kids to the art of fly fishing and the joys of the outside.
