Yesterday I had a superb afternoon/evening session at the lake.
Arrived at the water about 3pm to find the level way up and coloured after the heavy rain the previous day but a chat with Jamie suggested that it was fishing well to the buzzer but to fish deeper because the mass of fresh water would put the fish down.
I tend to fish two buzzers at 3 foot and 6 foot under a sight bob so I went a little deeper at 4 foot 6 and 9 foot. I use the lightest sight bob I can so I can count it down as each buzzer settles, you'd be amazed just how many fish take the buzzer on the drop that you would miss without any indication of a take, but if the sight bob doesn't settle at the allotted time then strike!!!
So with the rig set up I set about the drop offs for half an hour without anything so started to lengthen a bang... a vicious take resulted in a nice fish speeding off leaping out of the water and throwing the barbless hook. OK that happens (and how, losing over a dozen fish in that exact same way through the session) but next cast a fish and this one's in the net... great! And so it continued through the session, land a fish or two then lose one in the air. Every single fish fought like a demon right to the net (I'm actually typing this with a limp because my right arm is still dropping off!!!) and I caught steadily through to about 9pm landing 15 in total.
The sun had now dropped below the trees and an evening rise was starting so time to change tactics. There then followed a very frustrating three quarters of an hour where I went through the card of dries with fish taking on the surface all around my fly without a single touch so in almost desperation I tied on a small dark olive nymph that I fast figure-of-eighted through the rises and success!!! In the last three quarters of an hour I took 7 more fish, all browns with the best around 4lb on the nymph.
I finished with a grand total of 22 fish, 9 browns, 1 blue and 12 rainbow and a fantastic session it was... and more than made up for the last few sessions where the sun and water temperature made things hard and only a handful of fish for my efforts.... but that is why they call it fishing not catching
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