John Poote and Keith Allison

December 29th 2019. After the Christmas festivities it was time to get out on the water for some fresh air and hopefully tight lines. Two other friends of John were in another boat . The weather was clement with 7 degrees, approx 8mph wind and sunny spells.  Having seen catch reports on Facebook and advice from the fishing lodge  the fish were deep down. We had to use Di7 and Di 8 lines fishing with snakelets and boobys. The colours being pink , red  and white and green boobys. We decided to get the lines down and deep we would fish out of the back of the boat  and drift . The wind was blowing  from south west  . John fished a red booby snake on the point and a tequila blob on dropper. The booby  helped the lure  from catching on any weed. I used a pink snakelet  on point and a tequila blob on dropper.  John had the first fish  approx 60 meters from shore and I hooked and lost one  at end of the drift which was around 20 meters from the bank. John was getting lots of pulls and tugs  on a certain drift at the south side of the reservoir. We went back and anchored there and John had two more. I had another on and off. We finished the day with only three in the net and my third blank on the trot!. John’s friends had managed 12 between them of  which one was approx 7lb and  another 4lb. All caught  near the south bank by the old jetty.

Our second visit 5th January 2020. The weather was similar to above with less sunshine and a slightly stronger wind.with   similar direction as above. Based on our last visit all tactics were the same , but I only fished a  white booby snakelet for a short time . I changed to green and white booby and John had a white booby minkie. John had the first fish and we spooned it and it had been feeding on snails. I put a black and peacock spider on the dropper and John changed to  a shrimp pattern on one of the droppers and a small black UV straggle booby. My first fish swallowed the booby and I couldn’t remove it so I changed to a greeen  and black booby. My next fish took the B& P spider which was quite satisfying . The wind became stronger so we put out a short roped drogue which did work  And we managed to fish over the drogue. One of the high lights of the afternoon was John’s double hook up. He netted one and I managed to net the other for him. The rest of the day was productive with a dozen fish for John and eight for me. Most of my fish came to the black and green booby  ( a John Budsworth tied pattern) on the point. I did try a humongous on the point and the booby on dropper and the fish took the dropper.  John had most of his fish on the point  fly. We both lost several more fish and had quite a few pulls. It was a good exercise in learning to keep moving until you find the fish. I think we made the mistake in our first trip of spending too much time in one place. If  we continue to get the good weather we can recommend  Farmoor is well worth a day out in Winter. We no doubt will be back there soon for more action hopefully.