My first outing of the month was on Good Friday. It turned out to be a dull, miserable, showery day - perfect for our spring flies. There was a good hatch of Large Dark Olives interspersed with a few March Browns, and some good fish were feeding on one of our large Eden flats. It was an interesting session, fish were completely ignoring the duns in favour of the more vulnerable and easily intercepted emergers. The favoured species appeared to be the Large Darks and most fish covered with an Olive emerger pattern accepted it without hesitation, including my two best fish of the session....
The best of a Good Friday session at 19 inches (49cm)
A close second on Good Friday measured 17 inches (43cm)
The wild March weather had put paid to any plans I'd had to fish our Northern Lakes. So my first outing of the season was a guided session for Stephen and Graham. Ullswater had a lot to live up to; Stephen's first go at the lake in 2014 saw him have a tremendous day, it was on top form and produced fish for him on most drifts. This year wasn't quite as good. Our spells of adverse weather during late March had dumped a fair amount of snow on the lakeland fells and the subsequent melt has meant that water temperatures are very low, so the fishing has been a bit slower than normal. Having said that; both fished well and caught, and missed fish in flurries of activity throughout the day....
Stephen with an Ullswater trout
We were starting to get decent spells of April sunshine but the bitterly cold winds were carried over from March and even though we were seeing hatches of fly on most days, the fish were often slow to respond to the surface fly. This was the case for David's visit. We had a cold upstream blast throughout the day; we got our daily trickle of Olives, but very few fish showed any interest. They were still feeding though and good presentation of a team of spiders paid dividends for David....
A short period of cloudier weather towards the middle of the month provided the opportunity for my first solo outing of the season on my favourite water. It turned out to be a wild day on Ullswater, but I managed to find shelter and a few productive drifts. My efforts were rewarded with fish responding positively to my 'Ullswater' or 'Glister muddler' dibbled through the wave.
The cloud remained for Paul's first venture out onto the lake. We could have done with a touch more wind at times, but we got enough to get a few good drifts - and a few fish....
The sunshine was back for Len's day. We were out to look at casting, and fishing techniques, and we were hunting Rainbows. After a morning casting session it was time to fish. The sunshine had pushed the fish down in the water, but a variety of different density lines, and flies, and retrieve rates ensured that Len had steady sport throughout the afternoon....
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