Blog — anglian waters fly fishing

So, all the rumours are that the fish are very close to the shores on, Grafham, Rutland, and Pitsford. I am a realist, and appreciate not all fish will be hugging the shores, however for the past 7 weeks, I have barely fished in water deeper than 6', and had some scintillating sport, with browns up to 5.5lb, and rainbows up to 10lb ! So what's driving this? There is one obvious reason -fish food ! There has been unprecedented midge hatches in the margins this year, followed by 1000's, if not millions of daphnia flees, and now on top...

Both Rutland & Grafham Water have experienced some fantastic buzzer fishing this last 8 weeks. What has been noticeable, is the widespread feeding activity. ! The fish can be found absolutely everywhere on these two waters. There was much talk pre-season at Rutland that with the low winter water levels, rapidly filled in the early spring, would have killed off buzzer beds around the shores, thus sending fish from the shores packing ! In fact, it has been the complete opposite. The fish just won't, as of now, leave the margins. Normanton, Berrybuts, Green Bank, Dickinsons Bay, Sailing Club, Yellow...

It is no secret that Rutland is producing some big catches at the moment, and buzzers are certainly at the top of the menu. However there is one other part with this buzzer bonanza, that you could argue, you could catch just as well with other tactics -and you can ! Patrick was my guest on Tuesday, and we wanted a leisurely approach, therefore we opted to fish buzzers on a floating line. There was a bright blue sky, a light wind, and this had the ingredients for a buzzer hatch at the warmest part of the day, and at...

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...

It was a pleasure to share a boat with Drew Mcintosh recently on Rutland, however the weather on the day was not so pleasurable, blue skies, accompanied by a strong Easterly wind. This certainly wasn't going to hamper our enthusiasm. Drew is part of the RAF fly fishing team, and wanted to learn a trick or two.....though the conditions restricted the presentation options, I'm sure he picked up a tip or two. It is no secret that the basin at Rutland at this time of year tends to hold a big number of fish, and this was recently aided by...