Last day of May

Good looking day today but quite a strong westerly over the fishery making catching a little more challenging. a combination of the wind and bright sun have caused the fish to go a little deeper and this is where the difficulties lie. How do you present and keep your flies in the fish zone? Most sinkers will take your flies down through the zone and missing the fish layer. So what do you do?

One very effective method is to use a sink tip line but this can add unnecessary cost to your days fishing so what's the alternative?

Use poly leaders

Loop to loop to your existing floating fly line and hey presto you now have a sink tip all for only £3.99. So you can hold your flies in the sub surface zone for longer. The clear intermediate only sinks at a rate of 1.5ins per second.

The fish re still turned onto naturals, buzzers mostly olive or black, daiwl bachs etc...

Tuesday 28th May

At the end of May already? All of our fishing rivers, reservoirs and stillwaters should be at their peak now but we are still suffering from the long hard winter. Insect life is way behind, yes we have plenty of chironomids about but sedges have been scarce and as for hawthorn flies?? I haven't seen any at the fishery only at the river!
Generally speaking we are getting warmer water temps so the fish are a lot more active. In fact as I type this post the water is alive with rises to buzzers all over the lake.
Could be a good day for those who fancy wetting a line!


Fish rising feeely to buzzers and sedges between light showers

Bank Holiday Monday 27th

Brisk start today for those wetting a line. Quite a few fish caught ALL on buzzers of one variety or another and ALL very shallow.
Top rod up to now is Jim McGinley on 4 fish, he will end up with double figures before the session is over!

Tip of the week 

I see quite a few people fishing buzzers in all manner of peculiar ways. A good way to fish them is to cast across the wind i.e. with the wind left to right or right to left from your position, allow your line to be blown in the direction of the wind. You'll end up with a big bow in the line with the buzzers moving exactly as the naturals would be.
Don't retrieve, just let the wind do all the work for you. Sometimes you will NOT feel any take, you must watch your line like a hawk and lift at any sign of movement - do not wait for a tug on the line - takes can be very gentle and subtle.
If you think there is a fish on, lift the rod in the general direction of the bow in the line not just vertically - there will be too much slack to hook the fish!
The normal set up with this method would be a floating line (could be any line actually) with a long leader with 3 flies (2 droppers) Initially use 3 different coloured flies and maybe even different sizes and swap about till you have located fish, what depth they are feeding in and what pattern they are interested in.
A fantastic method of fishing! Try it!

Bank Holiday Sunday

Another day of sunshine with a light breeze form the West. Maybe a day for hoppers just under the surface or even present a lure a little lower with a long leader on your floating line or with an intermediate.

Make hay while the sun shines not looking too good for tomorrow but what do they know???

Saturday 25th May 2013

It is a lovely sunny morning at the fishery and it was virtually flat calm when I arrived this morning. A little bit of a breeze has started coming over the dam wall but this is easily manageable from the pontoons all around the other parts of the water. I have no details as yet as to what's catching but there are a few fish on the surface showing themselves so they cant be that far down.  

Update, black buzzers have proved successful on the pontoons by the roadside. Fish have also shown interest to lures on intermediate lines. Despite the lovely sunny conditions, the wind has remained with us and I think the combination of both these elements have sent the fish just that little bit deeper than they were this morning.  

thursday 23rd May

Cold Westerly across the fishery today, almost back to January again!
The sun is shining but not having much effect on the temperature at present.

Just the time to try moving a muddler about in the wake, this can produces some vicious takes.

Also hoppers presented on or just under the surface can work really well, black, brown or claret can all work well.

Tuesday 21st May

Warm and damp today - ideal conditions for a good buzzer hatch. Fish rising steadily all over the lake.
Got a group of teachers here today form one of the local schools doing a fishing course with the Countryside Alliance and Mr Charles Jardine in attendance.
Last time Charles was here I had him float tubing! no chance of that today more's the pity.

Mon 20th May

Good day today for fly fishing - gentle warm breeze, cloud cover - all in all pretty near perfect.

The fish were a little quiet over the first part of the day not much rising but then as the day warmed up fish began to rise all over the lake. Some were taking buzzers inevitably but other we taking a larger insect that I didn't get a close look at to identify 100%, but would hazard a guess that they were a variety of Sedge.
Top rod today Phil Rees with 7 fish most of them Blues all on or near the surface!

Just taken delivery of some more flies 6 variations of "Daddy", some hoppers, lots of buzzers, bibios, black pennels, F flies, Okay Dokeys, Bob's bits etc etc

Still the same price 0.75p each or 10 for £6.50

Sunday 19th May 2013

Its a relatively mild day today at the fishery. There is a gentle breeze from the dam wall and every peg is easily fishable. There are plenty of fish showing on the surface. I will update with details of catches later. Its overcast but the sun is trying to poke through the clouds so fingers crossed for a warmer afternoon.

Sat 18th May

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days, I have been teaching on the river almost all week. Back to normal now though....? whatever normal is?

It certainly isn't normal weather at present, mist and drizzle with a surprisingly chill breeze, cold on the hands.
This has sent the fish a little down maybe 3ft to 6 ft with the odd one still rising.

Fish still being caught on a variety of methods from buzzers to Zonkers. Jim Mcginley is the top rod up to now with 4 fish all on a floating line.

We have the North West Ladies Fly Fishing Group with us today, the first time they have visited Curley's, hopefully not the last.

If any of our readers are interested in joing the the group, you can contact the organiser, Vee Carlson on 07886 81770 or email b9vee@lycos.com

More details to follow