KEITH ALLISON AT GRAFHAM – 5TH DECEMBER 2017

Another early start was necessary to maximise the daylight hours . The weather looked promising – a westerly wind of approximately 10 mph and some cloud cover with a temperature of 7C; not bad for this time of the year.

I headed off to my favourite spot, parking at Marlows and fishing the bank facing G Buoy. I started with a floating line with a shrimp on the point, red cheeked diawl bach on the top dropper and grhe on the bottom dropper. I tried a few casts off the bank, but had to wade in order to present the fly correctly. By mid morning I had had two fish on-and-off on the shrimp, the wind was getting stronger so it was time to move.

Having walked up to Deep Water Point without a take, I returned to The Willows and tried my luck there. I managed one fish, taken on a shrimp. It meant wading up to waist high and it was getting colder and a bit breezy. After an hour I went onto the Jetty with a Di 5 line and lures, but no takers.

In the last hour I was cold and tired of casting into the wind with not a lot of success. It was time to move to the south shore and I parked in Plummers car park. This was a good move as it was calmer and I did see fish moving. I switched to a Rio midge tip line with a white minky on the point with one dropper – a red diawl bach. On my first cast out I had a pluck at the point fly . The next cast a follow and on the third attempt it took the lure and I was down to the backing. This happened again and I realised I had a good fish on. Eventually I landed it and it was my best and biggest rainbow from Grafham. It weighed 4 lbs. and I had to take a photograph , see photo.

I only caught two fish, but the last one was worth the wait. This reservoir has been fishing so well off the bank over the last few weeks. It has been great fun and enabled me to extend my fishing season. I think the weather is now turning too cold so it’s time to hang up the rod and reel and spend some time on the fly tying vice.