After we picked up our catch & release licences at the water sport centre of Stithians Reservoir, we put up our fly-rods and walked the distance to Chapel Bay, close to a kilometre from the car park.

The bay we had chosen to fish was easy to wade (although a little soft at certain spots) and with a lot of water vegetation, as it turned out. We started searching the water with floating lines, a twelve foot leader and a size 10 AGRHE Nymph or Gray Nymph on a 5 lb tippet.

The first takes came quickly, but these were not trout. Good sized rudd got hold of our nymphs close to the water plants or further out.

After a while we tried some deeper water with buzzers and trout streamers, but we got no response on these. The water felt warm, so the brown and rainbow trout will have moved to deeper water further away from shore.

After one and a half hour we returned to the rudd and the nymphs kept producing fish. Cora had the biggest rudd with a fish of 29 cm, the rest was all between 20 and 28 cm.

The fish were all beautifully coloured, four of the rudd were even unusually red in colour. I wonder how these could avoid the pike in the water, I am pretty sure there will be some pike in that corner too.

In all, I think we landed some 35 rudd, we missed probably more than that number of takes. A wonderful day, even if the trout remained out of reach.

Website: www.swlakesfishing.co.uk.

 

Also look at:
https://flyfishing-blog.com/flyfishing-blog.com/2019/08/24/wet-fly-fishing-on-the-river-tamar/
https://flyfishing-blog.com/flyfishing-blog.com/2019/08/23/arundell-arms-rivers-and-lake/
https://flyfishing-blog.com/flyfishing-blog.com/2019/08/22/return-to-the-arundell-arms/