Friday, 11th March, Draycote Water, Stuart Foulds.

I arrived at Draycote Lodge at 7.45am for a days fishing from the bank. The morning mist hung over the lake and I could just make out “D buoy” from the bank at Dunns Bay. The water was almost flat calm with a slight breeze blowing towards the bank. I set up a slow intermediate with a black and green lure (similar to the ones we have tied recently).

On the first cast I landed a 2lb rainbow. On the second cast I lost a rainbow of about 5lb as it lept repeatedly in quick succession and with several shakes of the head gave me a long distance release. For the next hour, I had a take almost every cast, but only caught about 75%, partly because of the aerial displays of the larger rainbows. By 11 o’clock I had landed 27 rainbows, with the largest being about 5lb. The angler fishing on my right had unfortunately had no luck and walked over to ask what I was catching on. “Black and Green” was my reply and gave him a quick look at my lure (the third version since the previous 2 were were chewed up). He was fishing hare’s ear and diawl bach without success. He returned to fishing with an orange head damsel and caught a couple. I persevered with the black and green. As the mist lifted the fish came closer into the bank. I short casted to sort out a small nest of line at me feet, sorted it, picked up the slack and was already into a fish! So I started to cast at about 30 – 45 degrees to the bank, and found several fish taking almost immediately. By 1.30pm the fishing was slowing down – I had caught 39 fish (and lost about half that number) and lunch was beckoning.

After lunch, the conditions brightened up the fish lost interest in black and green lures, and turned to damsels and buzzers (which were coming off in dribs and drabs). Unfortunately as the conditions brightened the fish that were left moved further out from the bank but I managed to catch 4 more on orange head damsels/montana for a total for the day of 43! A personal best for Draycote and amazing considering that where I was fishing had been match fished the day before (I later found out).

Draycote is fishing superbly – boat angler had 39 fish on fast sinking line/boobies, others had double figure success on buzzers/diawl bachs. This is a great time to visit Draycote!