April is not a good month for sea fishing on much of the east coast, so presented with a rare opportunity for a days fishing I decided on a day at my local Trout fishery – Sharpley Springs.
The fishery is a mix of 5 fly fishing only lakes, the largest being ‘The Doxford’ and the more modest of them being ‘The Noose’, along with a small children’s worm lake and a small training lake; a nice touch for those who are new to fly fishing and able to reap the benefit of some practical 1:1 coaching. It’s a great setup, and the relaxed, friendly atmosphere is why Sharpley boasts a strong group of regular visitors. Once you’ve paid for your ticket at the golf lodge down the road, you make your way to the actual fishery and sign in at the cabin, where you can get free tea/coffee throughout your session.
Although at one point fly fishing was a regular pass time for me, it’s 2-3 years since I last had the fly gear out so I was feeling a little rusty. Given the early season chill brought on by a gentle but steady northerly breeze though, I suspected I’d have to keep things nice and slow to get the fish to respond well. Suits me, as I much prefer the natural style of fly fishing that comes with fishing buzzers.
The great thing about buzzer fishing is the variance involved presents the angler with a constant challenge in terms of ‘matching the hatch’ so to speak. When we talk about buzzers, we’re talking about representing the various development stages of the larvae of the non-biting, chironomid midge species. These start their life out in the silt at the bottom of the lake/river bed as ‘bloodworm’ before developing into the ascending midge pupae, which rises tantalisingly slowly through the water column towards the surface, making itself generally irresistible to hungry trout. If it survives long enough to reach the surface, it now has to run the gauntlet of breaking through the surface tension, hatch into the winged adult and fly away before it gets snaffled.
All of these stages are imitated by different fly patterns, and the fish can be particularly selective in terms of what size, colour and depth they want the flies fished at before they’ll take. There are days when finding the right match can be maddening, so generally when starting a session I’ll start with a team of flies – at least 2, ideally 3. Unless it’s really cold, I’ll usually go for a couple of varnished buzzers alongside a lighter pattern such as a diawl bach fishing the top dropper. If the fish are higher in the water the 2nd dropper and even the point fly might get replaced by similar lighter patterns to really slow down their descent, or if the fish are in the top few feet then I might put something lumpy and buoyant on the point and fish 2 buzzers on droppers as a washing line. Of course if the fish are preoccupied with emerging adult midge then the dry fly fishing can be outstanding
My favourite way to fish a team of buzzers if there’s a light crosswind is straight line drifting, where you literally cast out at 90 degrees to the wind direction, straighten up and then allow the flies to swing round in the wind drift. You don’t need to ‘retrieve’ the flies – just apply an extremely slow figure 8 , enough to keep up with the flies rather than impart any actually movement as they swing round. Takes can be heart stopping and it makes for some really exciting fishing, especially early season.
Such was my approach today – i started the session with the 2 patterns that spend the most time out of my box, a wicked white black buzzer on the point and a dark olive on a dropper spaced around 4 ft apart on a 12 ft leader. Both flies are in size 12 as it’s April and usually the time of year where hungry, over wintered fish are looking to capitalise on the larger buzzers that start to hatch off early spring.
Not much happened for the first hour or so, and the trickle of late morning sunshine did very little to threaten the chill of the prevailing northerly breeze. What it did do though was spark a mass uprising of caenis flies, aptly nicknamed ‘anglers curse’ due to their tiny size and extreme difficulty to imitate. Naturally this got the attention of the trout and suddenly there was a half decent rise on. Much to my frustration though, they weren’t interested in any dries I hastily offered; even the tiniest of grey shipman’s buzzers which I’ve found success with in the past when the caenis are out were being ignored. So there was only one thing for it – cup of tea!
When I returned to the main lake half an hour later, the fish seemed to have gone down again and upon inspecting the margins, confidence was renewed as I could see several large “shucks” drifting about indicating that the slight increase in temperature had also coaxed some buzzers into hatching. Since there was little indication that the fish were preoccupied with emerging adults though, I set up a new leader of 13ft, again with a black buzzer on the point and a dark olive buzzer on the dropper above it, but this time with an additional dropper at the top fished shallow. To this I attached a brown Diawl Bach with some bright biot cheeks to make it stand out. Although they weren’t taking off the top, I didn’t think the fish would be really deep given the amount of shucks I could see drifting by my feet; some of the biggest I’d seen on this water, so they had to have noticed! By having the lighter Diawl Bach at the top of the setup rather than a 3rd epoxy buzzer, i can fish the cast a little shallower as the nymph won’t pull everything down as quickly as a heavy buzzer would do. This enables me to test out varying depths the fish may be feeding at, which to me is the most effective way to fish buzzers and produce quicker takes than perhaps you would just fishing a single fly.
This turns out to be a good tactic, as within a couple of cast the first stocky fish slams into the point fly (a size 10 black, this time with silver cheeks) and is quickly netted.
And I quickly brush off the prospect of it being a fluke, hitting another fish straight after. And another. And another!
The morning has been slow all round with very few anglers connecting to much, so naturally I gather some interest as I start getting asked what I’m using. I’m not one of these super secretive types that guards their favourite fly patterns though and happily share what I’m doing and soon a few others are bending into fish more regularly.
The fish continue to respond well to the combo all afternoon, with no one fly really out performing the other – all 3 produce regularly and I quickly get into double figures, including some lovely conditioned over wintered fish. Surprisingly there are some lovely Brownies in amongst them as well, and I net 3 over the course of the afternoon which is the most brownies I’ve had in a single day session.
I’m on a kill ticket so using a spoon to inspect the contents of one of my bagged fish reveals what I already knew – that the fish were preoccupied with the large, darker coloured buzzers as they ascend ready to hatch.
I stick it out until 7pm before calling it a day, happy with a tally somewhere in the mid teens. It’s been a rare day out fishing and a nice change from the usual saltwater exploits. With thing warming up though, I’ll definitely be getting out on the Bass soon!