A surprisingly easy evening trout fishing

Way back in time, just after 9-11 in fact, I was due for a day's trout fishing at Chew with my banking friend Robert and the famous fishing guide, John Horsey.  Due to 9-11, Robert couldn't attend so John and I shared the boat and both fished.  When I got there at 12:00, John was really excited saying that huge numbers of fish were hovering just below the surface and we would have a great day on dry flies.  And so it proved.  We caught something like 120 fish that day, split 75-45 to John.  Despite becoming acutely aware of John's obviously higher skill level, I was really pleased with my 45 fish, all taken on dry flies - who wouldn't be?  I doubt I will ever have such a day trout fishing again.

But yesterday came close!

Actually really easy fishing days are, in an important sense, actually quite uninteresting as there isn't the challenge there is usually.  The story was this.  I fished Bushyleaze trout fishery arriving at just after 4:00pm.  Bushyleaze is one of my favourite fishing spots though I have only managed a couple of trips to it over the past few years.  In particular, it responds well to my preferred fly fishing method of dries or nymphs just below the surface.

I started in the bay at the south end of the lake and soon discovered a huge collection of fish holed up by a tree and keen to take dries or nymphs.  In the next four hours, I had about 40 takes, hooked around 20 fish, and landed a fair few (including three foul hooked fish - which is a bit unusual, but just shows how close to the surface the fish were), all of which I returned.  Best fish was 5-05, two others over 4lbs and the rest about 2 1/2lbs.

It didn't seem to matter that there were frequent disturbances to the area from hooked fish, the others just kept on taking.  I actually hooked 9 fish on the same fly, until it became so tatty that I had to replace it.  Virtually every fish was caught on a size 12 daiwl bach nymph - the one with the touch of red.  And in the end this actually became a bit dull.  Once past about 6:30, I rarely went three casts without a take, at one point hooked five fish in seven casts, and on another occasion had three takes in about 10 seconds, two of which I missed and one fish I lost.

But it is also important to remember that such days are really, really rare.  Hardly anyone else caught anything (a guy I showed the fish location to had a couple from there) and I have had many, many hard days catching one or two fish after hours of effort.  So such freakishly good days should be accepted gratefully when they occur and remembered fondly when times are much tougher.

Because there is so much action on the video cameras, I have ended up posting three videos of the trip, edited so it doesn't quite look like I am catching one fish after another!  I suspect this is rather over-the-top but it did give me lots of good practice at making the films and to do some experimenting with editing.  No doubt there will be plenty of videos later in the year where nothing much happens.  One thing I did notice with the video is that it appears I am fishing really close to the fish.  There is a slight telephoto effect from the camera.  I am actually about 15 to 20 yards from the tree, casting down to it so that the fly lands as close to the tree as possible.  At times it looks like I'm virtually on top of the fish!

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6PA_v_bbE0&feature=related

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuF1sWGWGoA&feature=related

Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYFKb7z_kcU&feature=related