Mill Farm Worton

[Greenheart]

As i'd been a good boy & completed my daily chores before lunch, the FPO gave me an afternoon pass for a spot of fishing. Conditions looked perfect to try a bit of fluff chucking. Mild, overcast & a light westerly wind. I needed no second bidding. I grabbed my gear from the tackle shed & was on the bank of my local Trout fishery, Mill Farm, Worton by 13.30.

As I did'nt want a freezer full of fish & only wanted enough for dinner monday, I purchased a two fish ticket.
There were a couple of other anglers there when I arrived. So I took a stroll around to see if they had had any luck & to see if I could spot any moving fish. They informed me that conditions were difficult & that they were only getting the odd pull. I noticed that they were using fairly large longshank nymph type flys & retrieving them fairly fast. So I opted to do the opposite. It was clear that the fish were fairly deep, so I tied on a size 14 Pheasant tail nymph pattern, tied on a heavy hook. I cast it out into the deeper water, allowed it to sink to the bottom & pulled it back with a very slow figure of eight retrieve. I watched the line between my rodtip & the water for any signs of a bite. It's very similar to using a swingtip bite indicator when coarse fishing. Third cast, I noticed a barely imperceptable lift in the line, so I struck & connected with this fish which weighed in just short of 3lb.

Another couple of casts & I had another gentle take. I struck again & lifted into a good fish. However after a short tussle, it came off. Not wanting to catch my limit too quickly, I decided to change my fly pattern. I searched through my box & came up with a bloodworm pattern that i'd tied myself. It's a very simple fly consisting of a size 12 fine wire hook, with one turn of Peacock herl for the head, Several small translusent red glass beads for the body & a tuft of red marabou for the tail. I fished this for about 30 minutes without any interest, Then suddenly I had a savage pull, resulting in a nice looking fish of 4lb 2oz that fought like a demon.

The time was now 3pm. It had not been a very long session, but very enjoyable & it was nice to cast a fly again. Interestingly, although nobody had been getting any takes for a while, As soon as I hooked the larger fish, I noticed that the two other guys fishing the lake, both hooked fish at the same time. I wonder what causes fish to switch on like this? Any ideas?

[Twiddler]

Nice one Ian....short but successful session
That's dinner and points sorted!!

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Looks a fab day well done

[fishypaul]

super looking water ian, a nice afternoons fishing,well done mate

[pingu]

nice one ian
enjoy dinner tommorrow


dave

[Norfolkboy]

Well done Ian

[flyman]

Nice fish the weather looked perfect.
Its a good idea watching the loop surprising how much your
catch rate goes up rather than feeling the take.

Flyman

[Greenheart]

Originally Posted by flyman

Nice fish the weather looked perfect.
Its a good idea watching the loop surprising how much your
catch rate goes up rather than feeling the take.

Flyman

Another good method of bite detection is to tie a short length of brightly coloured wool where the leader is attached to the flyline. Add a bit of fly floatant & use that as an indicator. Orvis also used to market a fly line with two tone coloured bands on it (Zebra Line) which was supposed to help with spotting shy bites. Not sure if these are still available though.

[Lazarus]

Well done Ian. Seeing your smashing fish has whetted my appetite. Watch this space.

[BaggieRich]

Well done Ian.

At the risk of exposing myself as a fluff-chucking newbie, is there no catch and release at this lake??? Always wondered why that was?