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Having fished the shores of Rutland Water for 4o years now, you kind of get a good understanding of the mood of the place, and how it tends to fish, though even the best of us sometimes get baffled. I had heard there were fish in Whitwell Creek, and with a window of time available on the Sunday morning, I ventured down for a couple of hours. It would be a good bet to fish a team of buzzers in March, as as our seasons now seem to be getting earlier each year, and the winters less cold, therefore buzzer...

Rutland, however you may look at it, is a huge vast amount of water, and get it wrong and it can seem a lonely place at times. Early season stock fish are released in the same areas year in, year out, and this only starts to vary, once the water levels drop, and access becomes a problem, therefore you can get the odds heavily on your side from the off, if you know where to look ! I am about to tell you where ! We set our first drift, 80yds just off the left of the mouth of Whitwell...

Grafham Water has recently hit peak form, though on my last two visits within 7 days it certainly seems to have put it brakes on, however what has become noticeable is, I have seen some big browns moving, but not latched onto one, until now !! It was a pretty blustery day with a fresh SSW wind, gusting up to 35mph, so seeking shelter was a priority. Luckily one of the  current hot spots, the sailing club to Sludge Point, was pretty sheltered, for the first 4oyds at least, before you caught the wind. As we motored to the area,...

Grafham Water is certainly the reservoir in form at the minute, though not for everyone it seems. Following a great 4 hours on the bank yesterday, landing 8 fish, I was super excited to be returning today, this time from a boat. I have found the fish to be very tight to the banks, and this has certainly been the case for the last few years at this time of year. Same place, same depth of water and same flies. We started fishing off the seat, armed with midge tip lines, and a single olive snake. (We fished single flies...

A back to back visit to Rutland, as so many times it can, showed once more how you can have a serious love hate relationship with the place - Like it or Loathe it, its sheer size brings the best out of "fishing" and puts you the angler, to the test ! On Friday I shared a boat with a Phil Calvert, and our mission was to locate, and catch a Rutland "biggie" hopefully a brown. At this time of year, with so much fry in the water, the bigger fish certainly become more active, thus more vulnerable to capture....