A ‘fishy’ tail for you all.

I was standing on my platform, looking hopefully out from the second stage up from the South East corner, waiting for a fish…any fish… to take my dry fly when a young chap, a rarity by any measure, came up and pointed out there was an orange streak moving slowly through the water about 5 metres out.

It looked like a fly line, and putting two and two together, we deduced that it was a line lost by a senior member of the club (that narrows it down I’m sure) who was fishing at the outflow. He was broken by a fish earlier in the morning and his line had snapped at the start of the backing. Moving at the speed of greased indifference I stumbled gracefully into action and cast my dry fly over the orange line hoping to snag it. I’m sure at this point you have worked out why I failed. Yep. Dry flies don’t sink. Doh. So to effect a quick(ish) rescue I hooked my dry fly though the eye of a gold head black and green lure and cast over the fly line which was just under the surface. My first cast sank the flies beautifully into the jaws of a waiting trout, which held on running around the end of the rogue line and eventually into my net.

A second cast at the rogue line saw a neat pick up and a gentle retrieve brought part of the line into my waiting hands. On completion of the rescue a second trout (over summer fish) was dispatched.

I coiled the line and returned to the grateful owner.

I now have three dilemmas about breaking club rules.

1. can a member fish with a double pointed hook (dry and lure in the same place on the line)
2. Is hand lining legal, or should I have used a rod to land the second fish?
3. Should I have given the offending trout to the line owner ?

I throw myself on the mercy of this court.

From an anonymous Treasurer

There will be a second working party on Sunday 1st November, starting at 09.30 am and hopefully finishing at about 1 pm. To illustrate the scale of work required at this working party, we will need to fill and position approximately 300 sandbags alongside the planking along the West bank. Once the sandbags in place, we will need to transport the topsoil from the car park to the West bank and then spread this over the planking and sand bags. Once the topsoil is in place, we will finally have to spread grass seed over the area.

Depending upon the numbers of people we can get to help, we also have to consider filling the potholes on the access, and possible a few refinements down at the outlet.

We therefore have a lot to do, and desperately need as many workers as possible to do your bit for the Club. We managed the rule of six very well last Sunday, and will continue to do the same on 1st November, with 3 separate groups allocated to sand bag filling, sand bag transportation and sandbag positioning. We could then do with 3 further groups to fill the trailers with topsoil, positioning the topsoil, and then bedding it in and spreading grass seed.

If time and the number of workers permit, we can also employ 2 more groups of six filling potholes in the car park and gate area, with the second working from the Worthing Road gate. However, this will very much require good weather as we cannot fill the holes if they are full of water or it is too cold.

My total of the above effort required is equal to about 48 people! So, please don’t be shy – do come along and help the Club out – we need every one of you! Please pass this message on to any members you know of that do not use e mail – thanks.

On other news and pleas for help – if there is anyone out there with about 10kg of grass seed going begging, the Club will be eternally grateful?

Fishery Report 10^th October 2020

At long last I am starting to give some positive news. Our new outlet pipes have worked ‘a dream’ in getting rid of the flood water and all our banks are accessible and platforms clear.  A number of the willows along the bank which were affected by the strong winds have been trimmed back (many thanks Rupert for all your hard work on these) and are causing no problems. We do have one stuck in the river above the club hut but this is not causing any problems so will have to ‘wait its turn’. Now on to the important matter of the fishing. The water is beginning to clear nicely and as expected, when this happened,  catches have gone up. Since my lasr report on 29^th September  152 fish have been taken with a rod average of just on 1.5 fish per rod visit. This I expect to increase as the water continues to clear. 1180 fish have been stocked since 15^th September with a further 3 or possibly 4 stockings between now and mid November. This will obviously be kept under review depending on catch returns.

Now onto ‘how to catch them’. Well most reports I have received from those who have caught have found the fish either on or fairly near the surface especially along the west bank; off the gravels on the north bank and down the bottom by the outlet. I know of fish being caught on nymphs; daddies; hoppers and green and black or green and white lures. Most members have advised that our trout ‘wanted it ‘pulled a bit’ with a wake fly on the top dropper often gaining the trouts interest and successful hook ups. However I am sure other methods have and will continue to work. The most emphasis seems again to be getting the depth right; speed of retrieve rate right and pattern not so important. Anyway we all hope the fishing continues to improve as the water clears so that we all  (hopefully) can enjoy the excellent autumn and back end sport that our lake has offered so often in the past.

Roger

Pike fishing starts 1st November to 13th Feb 2021