Bob Sharp and Bob Ayers 9 April 2021

This was Bob Ayres and my first fishing outing of the year, along with friends Phill and Andy. Thankfully we all decided to avoid an early start and arrived around 09.00 to find only four boats already on the water and a light breeze blowing towards the Dam.

Encouraged by a modest midge hatch, we anchored about 70 m from the far bank and 200m from the dam. Our set up, a long leader and three black buzzers and Bob A, a blob and buzzers.

On the first two casts I hooked and lost two fish with Bob A soon into a fish. On my fourth cast I hooked and had nearly landed the fish when another took the point fly, chaos followed, luck held and these were landed, all whilst Bob A was landing another fish.

This pace continued until about lunchtime, my sandwiches and flask out when Bob A said ‘this is a decent fish’ which he played for about 10 minutes and brought the fish to the side of the boat and I saw it for the first time – I dropped my sandwich and grabbed the net and yelled ‘careful this is a really big fish’, and so it was. Sometime later with the fish safely in the net in the water, I could see It was the biggest trout I had ever seen anywhere! I tried to compare it with a 10 pounder I had caught at Ravensthorpe in June 2019 and concluded that was a dwarf compared with this fish. As we have a policy of fish hooked should remain in the water, any accurate measurement was not possible but my guess would be 12 – 14 lb!

The buzzer hatch slowed just after lunch but came on again soon after, until about 16.00.

We lost count of how many fish caught, probably more than 30, all in the 3-4lb class and all except two were carefully returned. I hooked and landed 7 fish in 10 casts. All the fish were in superb condition and very fit – one took my fly line and most of the backing off the reel before I could get a modicum of control.

Phill and Andy left before us and came alongside to say their day had been tough and Phill had just 3 fish. They had anchored about 200m from us and the same distance from the bank, indicating how local a hatch can be.

We stuck with our original set up throughout the day, 9’ tapered leader and 10’ of 6lb Fluoro’, mine with 2 droppers and 3 black buzzers size 10 and 12 tied on Kamasan B110’s.

Most of the fish were hooked in the top metre of the water. The average weight of the fish caught was more than the usual average, probably explained by being stocked in 2020 and having a year of less fishing pressure. The fish had noticeably more body depth compared to their length. 

Bob Sharp 15 April 2021