Draycote Report W/E 20th June 2021

Weekly Fishing Report: Draycote, Eyebrook & Thornton

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Draycote Fishery Weekly Report – 01788 812018

**New Email Address**: draycote@flyfishstore.co.uk

Week Ending Sunday 20^th June 2021   Rod Av: 2.62  Water Temperature: 18°C

After the warm weekend, it was expected the fish would drop into the deeper water. However with the water temperature 20 degrees in the top 2 feet the fish only dropped slightly to around 3ft. All water season ticket holder Phil Mee fished with Steve Fairgrieve with the pair boating 10 fish. Using black buzzers and a FAB on a RIO Midge Tip, fishing at the Saddle Bank. Tosh Storrar’s party kicked off their 4 day break in fine form with the 9 anglers catching over 60 fish. The best tactic the lads found was Diawl Bachs and buzzers fished on a floating line around A Buoy, with dries working in the afternoon when the cloud rolled in. Draycote season ticket holder Peter Elliot enjoyed a good afternoon using a washing line and dries fishing around A buoy & B buoy, landing over 20 fish. Fishery Ranger Lee Henfrey fished with Draycote Manager Tom Bird in the morning with the pair boating over a dozen fish. Lee took the majority of them, using a RIO Hover with cormorants and  a booby on the point over open water.

Hot, bright and flat conditions greeted the anglers fishing Tuesday, certainly not ideal trout fishing conditions. All water season ticket holder Keith Coley fished with regular boat partner Bob Taft with the pair using Montana nymphs to good effect landing 15 fish including a cracking Rainbow of 5.2lb. Gordon Byers started his first of his three day break in fine form landing 8 fish on a fast sinking line and a black bunny leach. Tosh Storrar’s party of anglers found the fishing trickier than the day before landing 40 fish between the 9 of them. The best tactic in the group was to use a 10ft midge tip with nymphs and a FAB on the point.

A scorching hot day Wednesday, however, the anglers proved more than up to the challenging conditions catching fish to produce a rod average of 7 fish per angler. Geoff Preston fished around the Draycote Dam wall on sunk lines using Damsel nymphs and landed some cracking silver fish up to 4lb. All water season ticket holder Jamie Scott landed 15 fish all on buzzers. Tosh Storrar’s party enjoyed good sport around A buoy again with Tosh himself enjoying a great day landing 17 fish using a Airflo 12ft fast tip with size 14 hot head Diawl Bachs on the droppers and a FAB on the point.

Thursday dawned overcast with a light breeze and therefore ideal conditions. However with the current temperature and some colour in the water the fish have definitely proved that little bit harder to catch. Draycote regular Bob Askew teased out 2 fish using diawl bachs with a FAB on the point, and then went on to catch a further 9 fish on a DI 3 line with a black and olive snake. Season permit holder Dave Adkins used a DI 5 and an olive snake to boat 10 fish drifting from A buoy to the Draycote Dam. Staff member Michael Hanlon caught 8 fish using cormorants on a fast glass around B buoy and then in Biggin Bay.

Friday’s forecast was to be wet and windy and for once, the forecasters got it right. What a day! It poured down from start to finish with an awful lot of very damp anglers at the end of it. Considering the conditions Draycote fished quite well overall, with what looked like the best of the fishing in the shallow water down in Toft.  The bank fishing has been a bit of a hit and miss affair of late, but Fred Brookes caught 2 fish on shipmans buzzers and Colin Day had half a dozen fish from Toft Shallows and the Tower Bank straight lining pheasant tail nymphs on a floating line. Quite a few of the boats were out practising for Saturdays competition and played their cards very close to their chest, but Paul Cramp and his boat partner managed 16 fish between them, whilst Ray Rawlings managed 5 on snakes from the Hensborough Bank and Toft. Ian Richardson and Bob Smith also managed 5 fish on nymphs before rain stopped play and they headed home to dry out a bit.

Plenty of cloud cover with a very light breeze (sometimes), on Sunday greeted our pleasure anglers as well as the participants for the Draycote round of the Super 4’s team competition. Although we saw yet another drop in water temperature, the fish didn’t come easy and overall there were a few anglers who struggled here and there. Bank anglers like Tony Harris and Mike Garner managed a few fish each in difficult conditions, using buzzers and holographic hares ears in such places as the Tower Bank, the Cornfield and Toft Shallows. Out on the boats Mr Brays party, with 3 experienced anglers and 3 beginners, managed to net 6 fish in total, not a bad day considering the conditions. In the competition there was a huge variety in the tactics from dries, to washing lining on various midge tips, with the 2 top anglers having 11 fish each. With Hywel Morgan fishing a 6ft slow tip with 2 boobies and two nymphs. While Leigh Pond used a Di 7 and boobies in Toft to take his 11 fish. During the competition, the 53 anglers caught 162 fish giving a rod average of 3.11. The best area was down in Toft coming out from the nature reserve buoys towards G buoy. There was also a number of fish caught fishing the North Shore from Biggin Bay to D Buoy.

Sunday saw another day of favourable conditions with overcast skies and north winds, these much cooler temperatures saw the water temperature hit a much friendly 18 degrees. Although despite these good conditions the fish did not really want to play ball. Season ticket holder Ian Reeve and Matt Pittaway landed 9 fish using Pitsford Pea & Diawl Bachs. The traveling anglers of Jake Munro and Craig Davies landed 23 between them using a black grunter dry fly. Jim Smith & Ed Douglas fished dries to take 20 fish to the boat with the best areas being Farborough Dam Wall and then D Buoy to the back of the Aerators, with CDC dries being the best dries.

With much cooler temperatures forecast we expect the fish to settle down and rise in the water column and the dry fly fishing will really come to the fore.

Thornton Fishery Weekly Report – 01530 230807

**New Email Address**: thornton@flyfishstore.co.uk

Week Ending 20^th June.    Rod Av: 2.5  Water Temperature: 19c – 20c

Following the weekends heat a quiet day for us on Monday. Morning started warm with little wind by early afternoon the wind increased & came from the north bringing with it a refreshing cool breeze. T Evans & J Bilinski caught 22 on buzzers with the majority caught during the early afternoon with the cooler breeze with most taking a static buzzer fished 6ft to 12ft.

Tuesday and another warm day with the majority of anglers following our advice and fishing the cooler morning session. Majority of the trout caught are in the 4ft to 12ft depth over the main basin with static buzzer & red diawls or intermediate with damsels, red diawl and buzzers. As you would expect with the heat a fast sinker short leader and boobies are also taking a few fish. Damsel nymph are increasing in numbers every day. Malwina Chlebowsca enjoyed her first solo trip to Thornton catching 4 on buzzers and booby. All water member P Mee caught 10 for his visit fishing midge tip with damsels and diawls, Barry Deely fished a sink 5 with humungus and damsel to catch his 6 trout with Mick Huffer catching 6 on damsels and diawls

Wednesday with the water temperature 20c+ were looking forward to the cooler forecast due on Friday. Dave Coote fished a short morning session catching 3 on small olive buzzer, Bill Holland fished 8am to 12pm catching 3 on diawl bach. Mick Armstrong fished an afternoon session with fast sinking lines with booby to catch his 8 trout

Thursday, Mick Huffer returned for his second visit of the week catching 6 on Damsel & Diawl bach, Phil Mee returning for his second visit of the week caught 6 also on diawls & fab with the majority of the catches coming to intermediates or sink 3 lines fished 4ft down to 12ft on a slow retrieve. Damsels, diawls, damsel booby best patterns.

Friday, cooler weather arrived with a 10 degree drop in the daytime air temperature. Damsel patterns, red diawl continued to be the flies that are working with J Smith taking 3 for his mornings visit. Not many rods about due to the forecast of rain & cooler conditions. Lots of ladybird larvae on the water in the afternoon, washed or blown in by the weather

Saturday & our surface water temperature is down by 1.5c to 20.5c & I expect it to slowly drop further during the next few days. The deeper water around the orange buoys continues to fish best with the majority of the trout taken between 4ft & 12ft. Intermediate, under the bung or DI3 best method with size #12 & #14 red diawl, #14 & #16 olive, black or red buzzer, damsel patterns, olive booby. Ian Leach took out the demo VISION HERO rod to try & managed to catch 5 trout on G/H damsel & diawls, Zoltan Kis party of 4 rods caught 12 trout between them.

Sunday, much cooler morning our surface water temperature is now 19c+ Few rods fishing due to the forecast of heavy rain, which never came!

A tough day with the anglers who did fish struggling for a fish

With the cooler weather our water temperature has dropped steadily all week & will continue to drop with the cooler forecast for the next few days. Lots of damsels, small size #14, #16, #18 buzzers, sedges in the evening but very few pin fry.

Eyebrook Fishery Weekly Report – 01536 770264

**New Email Address**: eyebrook@flyfishstore.co.uk

Week ending 20th June                              Rod Average: 1.1                             Water Temp: 22 – 20C

The Sun is still high in the sky and there seems to very little sight of it fading in the near future. Fantastic weather for topping up your tan, but not so great for fishing dries on a floating line. However, once the sun starts to drop in the sky, the fish come out to play during the evening rise. Eyebrook Ranger Jason spent a bit of time out on the water on Monday and opted to fish a single booby damsel on a Di 5 for most of his time out on the water. He found that a countdown of 15 and a short jerky retrieve seemed to garnish interest from the fishes. Following on from a few big browns coming out this season, Alex Smith hooked and landed a superb 15lbs+ Brown. It followed his damsel up from depth while he fished a floating line. Other than that, the majority that opted to fish floating lines struggled to locate fish and bring them to the boat. The bank anglers are having some decent sport either first thing in the morning or later in the evening when the temperatures start to drop off.

Tuesday seen 21 brave souls venturing out on to the lake in hot still conditions. For the majority, they found it incredibly challenging. Russ Logan managed to bring 8 fish to the boat using Minkies and an olive booby. Despite the challenging conditions, most anglers were simply happy to be out in such beautiful surroundings and enjoying the peace and quiet.

A cold weather front has hit and with it some welcome rain. Even with the colder weather, our water temperature is still sitting above 20C and proving a bit challenging for most of our anglers. This was the case for a few days until the rain subsided on Saturday.

Still with cooler conditions and occasional light showers the conditions should have been near perfect for a day out on the water. However, our fishy little residents were still proving to be elusive to most of our anglers. All water ticket holder A Lilley managed to winkle out 6 fish on an orange blob. Neil Shilton was joined by his brother for a day out on their float tubes. Neil managed 6 but his brother had well in to double figures fishing very deep on sinking lines.

As the week came to an end it was clear to see that the fishing had become more challenging due to the really hot spell we have experienced over the past couple of weeks. The sudden rise in temperature has put the fish down in to deeper water. Anglers are still reporting fish moving in the surface but really struggling to tempt fish to take dries or nymphs fished washing line style. Most of the better catch returns have been from anglers fishing Di5 or Di7 Lines and using lures. J. Smith went out with his son for a few hours in the morning and found fish in the surface near the Willow tree but didn’t have any luck with those. He moved down the shore line and started moving down the lines until he settled on a Di5 and managed to whittle out 5 fish on snakes and blobs.

Looking forward in to next weeks weather, the temperatures are going to start rising to 20C by Thursday afternoon, with Saturday looking to be the hottest day reaching 22C. as our water temperature is still topping 20C, the pike fishing is still suspended until further notice. We are hoping that the cooler conditions will drop the water temperatures soon and we will keep you notified on our social media accounts. Links to these accounts can be found at the top of the page.