We set off in to this vast reservoir, where fish of monstrous proportions lurk. The reason I love coming here so much is because you never know what you're going to hook next - it could be an 8oz Perch, or a 15lb+ Zed - who knows? In the past, we've had some great sport targeting predators on fly gear, landing up to 30 fish in a day. Some of these have been large fish - Zander to nearly 15lb and Perch to 3lb 9oz have all fallen to our fly patterns. My Dad has even had two Pike of 28lb and 28lb 14oz in two casts which was amazing!
After a 15 minute boat drive, we arrived at our first destination. As I lowered the anchor, Dad cast out. The anchor hit the bottom and I tied the rope off. I then looked round and he already had a fish on! Soon, a Zed of 9lb 12oz had been boated. Suprisingly, it was hooked in about 15ft of water, when we were anchored over 25ft, so obviously the fish were chasing our home-tied baitfish imitations from the bottom. The next cast for Dad also produced a Perch of 2lb 3oz. Not a bad start!
Half hour passed with no more action and, normally, if we don't have any pulls after about half an hour, we usually move, so the time had come to search for more fish. Next stop was in one of the many bays that fringe this huge expanse of water. After spending just a few minutes here I had a sudden thump, which also turned out to be a Perch of about a pound and a quarter - a sure sign there could be more. Literally seconds later, my Dad landed another nice Zed of 7lb 13oz, and soon the sport began to come thick and fast. Six more perch to nearly 2lb graced our net, as well as another Zander I caught of about 5lb. As I was playing the Zed, a Pike came up right next to the boat, totally unaware of our presence, took a gulp of air, and calmly descended in to the depths. It looked about 18lb! Both my Dad and I gazed at it in amazement, whilst I still played the fish I had on - I was suprised it didn't whack my Zander! As soon as we landed it, my Dad changed to a large, deceiver type fly to see if he could tempt that Pike to take.
Two casts later and sure enough, he did, and after a nerve racking battle, we had a stunning fish in the net. It was much smaller than we anticipated - but still a beautiful fish of 12lb 14oz.
Once the bite switched off about an hour later, we were back on our travels down the reservoir. We tried some more bays, which produced for me a 7lb 9oz Zed in an area more renowned for it's trout fishing, and Dad also lost one. It was now time to try some deeper areas. The water temperature was very warm, so, like trout, many predators retreat to the cooler depths of the reservoir in the summer months.
It turned out that we'd made a good move. After finding the fish, we landed another 5 Zander of 7lb 13oz, 7lb 13oz again(!), 7lb 1oz, 5lb 13oz and 5lb 4oz, which fell to streamer-like flies fished deep, at about 40 feet.
Unfortunately though, by about 7pm, dark, black clouds with heavy rain and lightning began to loom over the reservoir. They'd been circling us all day, but this storm looked very threatening. The wind suddenly got up and it was soon too uncomfortable to fish, so, like all the other boats, we made a frantic dash back to the harbour. We just managed to take shelter by the lodge and watched a very violent and wet electrical storm drift over us.
Our fishing had come to an unexpected end, and we'd missed our favourite time, but we still managed to boat 20 fish. It had been another great day on one of our favourite venues, and well worth braving the weather.
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