I went to Grafham Water yesterday as a practice prior going again on Saturday for a competition. I travelled with Chris Reeves, a professional fly dresser, who has been there many times before. We needed to see what the fish were taking and where they were located.
On arrival we booked in, canceled one of the boats booked and paid for the other. The shop was quite comprehensive and was worth looking around. Once the boat was loaded we got off and headed towards the dam end of the reservoir. Chris put out a drogue anchor to slow the rate of drift and control the boats' position. We then started fishing. Chris was fishing with four flies on his leader and me just one. We tried different types of line but kept the same flies. We tried slow sink and intermediate sink with no luck. In the end I changed flies and no luck. Eventually when we reached the dam after many drift I got the first tug, closely followed by a second. That was it, nothing for Chris and then it started to rain. We gave up at this point and went back for lunch, but with the size of the reservoir it took us half an hour, by which time it stopped raining.
Back on the water we headed to the far side. Chris kept on saying there's a fish but I never saw any. I changed my line again, this time to a floating one but kept the same fly, a green marabou nymph. I then got another tug and shortly afterwards I got a positive take but it did not stay hooked, on and then off.
Chris then had a take but when he pulled his line in one of the flies had been bitten off. This fly was called a Mackay (as in Mr Mackay from Porridge). He gave me one and put another one on. Shortly afterwards I caught the first fish. Chris then caught his first fish and then I got a second. This one seemed to fight as though it was a large fish but with my first site of it it was only average. Off it went again, then when I got it to the surface again I saw the reason why it fought so hard. It was belly hooked, when the fish went for the fly it missed it and probably turned catching the fly as it did so. Chris hooked another, as he pulled the fish in he saw that it was a Blue Rainbow. He got it to the boat, unfortunately he missed with the net and the fish took off again. As Chris got it back to the boat it came off. He hooked another and that got off again.
I then hooked my third fish, as I started to draw it in, Chris hooked another. We both landed fish at the same time. This was about it for me, everything was aching, my neck, my head and my bum from sitting. We decided to pack it in for the day. We had achieved what we had set out to do, learnt where the fish were, what depth they were at and what flies they were attracted to. I had picked up loads of tips from Chris, which hopefully I can remember for Saturdays' Match.
