Last weekend was the annual Roundhay Fly Fishers overnight trout fishing extravaganza. In previous years the club has visited fisheries such as Eyebrook, Esthwaite, Ravensthorpe, Pitsford and Rutland.
The normal plan for these weekends involves fishing somewhere outside of Yorkshire and spending a night in a decent pub somewhere near the chosen destination, or as was the case one year, spending a night in some damp static caravans that looked like someone had been killed inside them!
The venues of choice for 2009 were Ravensthorpe on Saturday and Rutland on Sunday. I’d never fished either of these Anglian Water Reservoirs before and as Rutland is viewed as the mecca of reservoir fly fishing I was looking forward to it.
I woke early on Saturday to discover it was freezing cold, windy and pissing it down, unfortunately it continued to piss it down nearly all weekend! British Summertime!
Upon arrival at Ravensthorpe we were told by the warden that the flies that were doing the damage were damsels. My local water (Beaverydyke) doesn’t really have a damsel hatch and I don’t have many of these in my fly box, as a result I had to tie on a pretty shoddy damsel imitation that I tied years ago when I was a novice.
The morning session didn’t result in any fish but it did result in a pretty thorough drenching for all concerned. We retired for lunch and the chance to get warm and learned that the rest of our party hadn’t faired much better. 8 anglers had caught 3 fish, the prospects for the afternoon looked bleak!
In the afternoon we tried a drift on the opposite side of the Reservoir and we finally got amongst some fish. My scratty damsel accounted for 5 fish to the net and a few decent takes, it seems I underestimated my tying prowess!
My Dad was fishing a klinkhammer and a suspended nymph New Zealand style and was getting almost an offer nearly every cast. He then switched to a small green muddler and a damsel and ended up with 15 fish and as many again that came off or missed the muddler. It really was top quality reservoir fly fishing, however it should be bloody good for £55 a day!
It turned out to be a really good session, the fish at Ravensthorpe are fantastic, they fight like absolute bloody stink and it takes an age to get their heads up and get them in the net.
We finished fishing at about 6:30 and retired to the pub for some fodder and a few ales. I thought bring on Rutland Water on Sunday for more of the same!
Unfortunately Sunday turned out to be an absolute stinker. We woke to a miserable dark grey morning. After we’d had a full english and convinced ourselves it wouldn’t be all that bad, it started to rain heavily, it was also properly cold and windy. We decided to go to Rutland and judge the conditions upon arrival.
When we got to Rutland it was still raining and it was still windy, the lady in the tackle shop said it was forecast to get worst as the day went on. We then saw a couple of anglers walking up from the boats, they didn’t just look wet, they looked like they had fallen in!
A quick vote decided it was a bad job, we all then splurged some cash in the pretty impressive Rutland tackle shop, had a brew in the equally impressive Lakeside Cafe and headed back oop north!
British Weather 1 Roundhay Fly Fishers 0