Rainbows At The Lake

I still have to write up a full report of my day on Six Mile Water in Antrim, Northern Ireland – but yesterday and today I decided to spend about an hour each day at a rainbow trout lake just minutes from my home.

It’s interesting that sometimes, the fish simply won’t take what seems to be the obvious. Yesterday evening, there was very little hatching although the odd large fish was seen taking something off the surface.   These surface takes were rare however.   I was also testing out a Greys “Greyflex M2” 10 1/2 foot rod – so to be fair, I was doing more casting and getting used to the action and length of this rod.  Thus far, I’m somewhat satisfied with the rod but it’s not quite performing up to my expectations.  Although it can lay out a long line, sometimes it feels as if it is “collapsing” on me.  I was using larger wind resistant flies in working with the rod – and found my timing had to be just about dead perfect on the forward stroke.  It could also be partly the line.  Last year, I was happy with the AirFlo Platinum – but after a year of use, it is gone quite crappy on me.

I had one fish in about an hour of angling on the lake – but not caught on what I thought should be working; flies like Wooly Buggers or Leeches.  Instead, it was the Malteser that took a fish.

This evening was a different story though.  I arrived at the lake about 5PM, chatted with an other angler for a bit and then set up my rod. At first, I thought the evening was going to be a repeat of yesterday evening until I moved to a different location.

Within about half an hour, I had five fish on a black Wooly Bugger. Stripped real slow – almost just drifting under the sinking tip line and leader.  As well as the five I brought to hand, there were several very soft takes that I just couldn’t set the hook on.  Anyhow, it was much better than yesterday.

The first fish turned out to be a 17 incher, which I decided to keep for breakfast:

I ended up with two that were larger than this very pretty fish, and two that were a few inches smaller.

A nice way to nearly finish up a day!