Draycote Water weekly report week ending 21st April 2019
After a cool previous week and a cold start to Monday with an overnight frost and chilling easterly winds, it was great to see the weather break from Tuesday onwards with the return of spring sunshine. As a result, we experienced a very good week at Draycote with 252 anglers visiting the fishery landing a very impressive 2,096 fish for a rod average of 8.3. With the cold weather hopefully now behind us, we are expecting the buzzer fishing to go from strength to strength and, as the daylight hours increase, the start of predictable evening rises.
With very cold temperatures on Monday caused by a bitter easterly wind, we only saw 3 anglers on the water. Only one caught, tempting a rainbow from the Cornfield with 3 others hooked but lost. Thankfully the weather changed on Tuesday with warmer conditions and the chill dropping out of the north easterly wind. This led to the rod average shooting up to a staggering 13.06, with Damsels and Buzzers featuring heavily on the catch returns. The best of the action came from the bank as the fish moved into shallow water to feed hard on the hatches of buzzer that had been brought on by the rising temperatures. Tony Broadway fished along the Tower Bank with washing lined buzzers on a floating line to land over 20 rainbows. Size 12 black buzzers proved to be his most productive pattern. Also on Tower Bank, Gary Russell landed over 35 on a mix of Pitsford Peas and Hothead Damsels. Further down the bank into Dunn’s Bay messrs Bircumshaw & Westbury enjoyed exceptional non-stop action. They fished teams of buzzers to land a staggering 90 between them! A truly amazing catch which just shows what a difference a day can make with a significant change in weather. Out on the boats Keith Coley & Bob Taft landed 23 collectively fishing Hares Ears, Buzzers and Diawl Bachs. All water season ticket holder Ed Douglas also enjoyed a good day’s sport due to the warmer conditions as he located feeding fish in Toft that were willing to take dries. On drifts from the shallows to G buoy he finished the day having fought 16 fine rainbows to the net.
The warm weather continued into Wednesday with cloud cover in the morning which broke around 10am to leave a lovely warm spring day. Alan Grant fished just up from Biggin Bay before Dunn’s Bay to land 15 with all his fish falling to Damsel patterns fished on a floating line. Draycote season ticket holder Michael Ravenscroft also used Blue Flash Damsels on a floating line to great effect- landing 22 fish in a half-day session. Michael found the hotspot to be just on the Tower Bank where the overflow from the treatment works comes in. Mike Oliver was back on the banks and fished various spots around the venue using his own Pheasant Tail variants. He ended his session having landed an impressive total of 34 rainbows caught & released. Tony Parker shared a boat with Nick Parker and found that the fish had dropped deeper in the water column as the sunshine increased. They therefore fished buzzers deep on a Di 5 sinking line which produced amazing results and they finished the day having caught 25 each. Mr D Cox & B Middleton fished in Dunn’s and Biggin with nymphs on a floating line enjoying a “great day’s sport with great fishing and staff”. (A thank you for those comments guys). Guiding & Tuition Manger Tom Bird took Rob Floyd out onto the water. Rob was looking to improve his overall catch rate and knowledge of Draycote in general. Tom kitted him out with a Sage Pulse rod and RIO Midge Tip Long line with a washing line cast of buzzer and 2 nymphs held up with a biscuit FAB blob. This proved to be a great method and caught fish everywhere they tried. Rob enjoyed his best day’s sport to date & even managed to hook into a fantastic rainbow estimated at 5lbs+ which, unfortunately, got the better of him & got off after a hard fight. For pictures of the day please visit www.facebook.com/flyfishstore. At the end of the day Lorenzo Serrano experienced non-stop evening action in Biggin Bay. He took a “last 4 hours” boat and, fishing teams of buzzers to moving fish, managed to bring 36 rainbows to the net!
The fishing on Thursday continued in the same fantastic form. All water season ticket holder Jude Tuffs landed 31 from the overflow from the treatment works on a floating line with a small blue flash damsel. Fishing just down the bank from Jude in Dunn’s Bay, Bob Smith & Ian Richardson enjoyed a great day too, landing 40 between them on Damsels and buzzers presented on a floating line. Traveling down from Scotland the “Paisley Patterns” club enjoyed a good day on the boats landing 113 fish between 12 anglers. They found the fish around Dunn’s, Tower Bank and Biggin and fished a mixture of buzzers and lures deep. Some fished floating lines with a long leader with others in the group choosing to use DI 5 sinking lines. Mr R Somerfield enjoyed great sport as well, landing over 40 fish on size 14 mini lures such as cormorants, cat’s whisker and “black and greens”. Lorenzo Serrano returned in the hope of repeating the previous evenings action. He was not disappointed as the same tactics brought an impressive tally of 19 rainbows to the net in a short, but very hectic, session. This time he caught consistently along the Farborough Dam as well as in Biggin Bay.
A lovely warm spring day greeted the anglers on Friday. The fish would normally be expected to drop down in the water in such bright conditions however, this was not the case for most. They were still being encountered throughout the water column by both boat and bank anglers. Similarly anglers were catching on a wide variety of patterns and methods. The backbone of the action was to buzzers and small nymphs but damsels, snakes and the Pitsford Pea also accounted for some good returns. Any line from a floater down to a DI5 showed up on the catch returns, but the most success was probably had on a midge tip or floating line. Those anglers willing to persevere with dries enjoyed some success, with the ever popular Big Red and the Crippled Midge patterns accounting for a few fish when accurately presented. Once again the “Paisley Patterns” took to the water and did extremely well using a diverse array of lines and fly patterns. Their return for the day was 124 fish to the boat between them. Graeme McCallum was their top rod on the day with 17 to the boat. Bank anglers have been encountering some great sport along the north shore. Among them was Alan Grant who netted 19 rainbows on a mix of buzzers and damsels. David Bailey and Alan Cooke netted a dozen from the boat, also on buzzers. Mr Brassett fished along the north bank from a boat and netted three for the pot with a further 18 caught & released on blobs. Mr N Starkey and Mr M Draper both had good sport from the boat netting 7 & 14 respectively on yellow cheeked black buzzer.
Yet another bright start greeted us all on Saturday with Draycote sitting mirror calm. Despite seemingly adverse conditions as regards fly fishing, once again anglers were catching fish from on or near the surface to right down into the depths. The two most popular methods on the day were either a DI5 and lures, or a midge tip and buzzers, with a FAB or a mini booby on the point. The “Paisley Patterns” were doing their level best to catch every fish in the reservoir (at least once!?), with a 107 fish tally between them for the day. Once again Graeme McCallum was their top rod, this time with 15 to the boat. Over their 3 days with us they caught and released a total of 344 fish, giving them a rod average of 9.5 for the trip. Well done lads, and we look forward to seeing you all again soon. The boat pairing of Jim Smith and Ed Douglas also had a productive day, with over 30 fish to the boat on buzzers and dries. Chris Aubrey and Ian Reeve used a mixture of buzzers and damsels in Biggin Bay also catching & releasing over thirty rainbows between them come the end of their session. Mr J Osbourne and Mr W Bilsborough used damsels, blobs and green buzzers, fished 6 feet down to good effect catching a total of 25. Only four anglers fished on the bank but good sport was also still to be had with Mark Randle landing a six fish limit for the pot at Lin Croft Point with a further brace caught & released.
The mini heat wave continued into Easter Sunday with blue skies, sunshine & near 20°C temperatures. However, it appeared that most celebrated the occasion with family as only eight anglers took to the water. Nevertheless, the fish clearly stayed hard on the feed with Colin Adams & boat partner John Maxwell ending their three day break with us in style landing 16 & 32 respectively. They used buzzers fished on a washing line and slow intermediate fly line at the Dunn’s Bay end of the Tower Bank. Their joint performance over the three days was tremendous with a combined total of 127 trout landed which represented an individual rod average of 21.16 per angler per day! Interestingly Colin commented that whilst adult buzzers were seemingly everywhere on their first two days, they had to resort to damsel patterns to catch consistently in Rainbow Corner & the Overflow. However, on their third day very few adult buzzer were on the wing & they caught non stop on midge pupa patterns.
Temperatures are forecast to return to more seasonal norms as the week progresses and, although some showery weather is in the mix from mid-week, it is anticipated that the great spring sport we have been experiencing will continue.
Fishery Tackle Shop & Online Shop
Draycote has a tackle shop at the fishery stocking SAGE, RIO, VISION, REDINGTON, WYCHWOOD, GREYS, SNOWBEE, FULLING MILL, FARIO, LOON, FISHPOND and STREAMWORKS products with demo SAGE, Vision & Redington rods & RIO fly lines for you to take out and try.
We also have an online shop. For all you anglers who might not be aware www.flyfishstore.co.uk is the online store for Draycote and the whole of Fishery Management (UK) Ltd. During the 2019 season we will be looking at doing weekly specials offers on the website. Following on from our popular RIO/Sage day last Sunday when staff offered advice on maintaining floating line. We are running on offer on RIO Cleaning Towelettes we recommend that these are used every 3 or 4 trip on any floating section of a line either on a full floater or midge tip. Paying special attention to the where the running line and head meet and hinge at the rod tip. The offer is either purchase 5 and get 1 free or purchase 10 and get 2 free. To see the offer please visit https://www.flyfishstore.co.uk/offers/. Also if you want more advice on making floating lines last longer please see the tuition blog from earlier in the season http://www.flyfishtuition.co.uk/latest-report/
Weekly Boat draw
Congratulations to Mr Cameron from Burbage the winner of this week’s free boat draw.
Weekly Stats:
Number Rods: 252 Number Trout Taken: 249 Number Trout Released: 1847
Total Catch: 2096 Rod Average: 8.3
Current Fishing Times:
Bank: 07:30 until 20:30
Boat All Day: 08:30 until 20:30
Boat Part Day: AM 08:30 until 14:30 PM 14:30 until 20:30
Last 4 Hours from: 16:30 until 20:30 (Ticket sales available from 16:15)
Gutting Room Closes – 20:00
All Anglers to be off site by: 20:45
Tight lines,
The Draycote Team
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