Struggle at Lakedown 18th September 2019

The “Indian Summer” of September has its benefits, but also its drawbacks. Trout fishing in crystal clear water is never easy in bright sunshine and flat calm conditions. So it proved at Lakedown. 14 members of fishing for Fun attended as well as a few local anglers and even though fish could be seen moving in all four lakes, they were clearly not feeding. most reported the odd touch or pull but by lunchtime only 8 fish had been landed. In the afternoon it got even harder and by the end of the day Fishing for Fun had landed just 11 fish between the 14 anglers with only 3 people getting a brace.
The methods that worked were mainly small nymphs on floating lines although Ken Brown did get both of his fish on a gold head daddy long legs. He kindly lent me one of his flies which elicited a long follow but that was all. Late in the day I took my only fish on a hares ear with an olive hackle fished about 6″ deep. The fish took at the end of the retrieve as I lifted and had clearly been following for a while.
Lovely day out in the countryside with the highlingh for me being watching a hobby work the treeline and the buzzards circling and calling overhead.

The group sat around in the sunshine for a while afterwards, the prize for best bag went to Margaret Pembro with two fish for 4lbs exactly and the biggest fish was 2 lbs 14 ozs caught by Stuart Onions.