FREE 100 BEST UK WATERS GUIDE FIRST FOR TACTICS, TACKLE & WHERE TO FISH
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ISSUE 499
TACTICS
Keep catching with our late-summer tips
RIVER SKILLS
WILD BROWNS
Hook pretty river 'spotties'
BOAT TACTICS
GO AFLOAT
Drift onto quality trout
RESERVOIR GUIDES
LOCH LEVEN
Catch legendary browns
WHERE TO FISH
BAHAMAS
Bonefish from the flats
Contents
BE INSPIRED
66 How to...
COVER STORY Peter Gathercole samples the delights of Brittany’s wild brown trout fishing
70 Snowbee advice
TACTICS
FLY-TYING
How a light approach can be used to catch on reservoirs in a flat calm
Peter Gathercole creates a summer Sedge pattern with bags of movement
Paul Procter’s guide to picking the right lure colour
Cover image by: Russ Symons
6 Browns of Brittany
12 Delicate artistry
74 Flybox fillers
24 Clatto Fishery
78 Flymasters
29 Dry wets?
TACKLE
Jeff Prest teams up with a local angler to learn about a water with a very interesting past!
46 Subscription offer
Get the next 3 issues of Trout Fisherman magazine delivered to your door for only £3!
90 Reader offer
COVER STORY An easy-to-cast Greys GR10 fly rod can be yours for just £40.
Iain Barr reveals a novel method of fishing wet flies at Carsington Water in Derbyshire
36 Don’t fear an east wind
Mike Thrussell visits a North Wales fishery to prove it is possible to find success in adverse conditions
40 Drift to fresh fish
COVER STORY Fishing fresh, unfished water is the key to success at in-form Farmoor Reservoir
48 Sedges COVER STORY
The life-cycle and top imitations
WHERE TO FISH an-up Our Bankside Cle Campaign Clean-up campaign continues to gain momentum with more fisheries asking for the poster and creating their own bins for discarded leaders. Spread the message…we can do this.
WHERE TO FIND US...
51 UK waters
Four cracking stillwaters to visit this month
54 Spotlight on... COVER STORY
Loch Leven and its summer hotspots
56 Bones in shallow seas
COVER STORY Matt Harris wades the warm, clear waters of the Bahamas in search of trophy bonefish
ADVICE
62 Advice squad
TF’s experts answer your questions on tangle-free drifts, lines for deep water and tapered leaders
ONLINE www.troutfisherman.co.uk TroutFishMag troutfishermanmag Trout Fisherman
Russ Symons ties a Silver Cormorant, the perfect fry imitation all season long Peter Gathercole judges your emerger patterns and sets a new fly-tying challenge
83 New gear
Hodgman wading boots, Airflo Airlite V2 rod and Snowbee sink-tip fly-lines are reviewed
88 Fly-tying
A look at Sybai’s fine synthetic dubbing, Neon Hackle from Flybox and the Stonfo tool bar
OPINION & NEWS 91 News
FOCUS ON...
JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN Bankside
71 The Kicking Caddis
18 Go west
We visit a fishery that offers a four-fish limit bag of specimen fish for just £40!
OFFERS
Tips on picking the right sinking fly-line
Bumper news section revealing all that’s going on in the trout fishing world
95 Cockwill
How a trip down memory lane does our contributor a world of good
96 Letters
Trout Fishermann readers have their say
98 Troutmasters
This month’s badge winners plus your latest catch photographs from around the country
103 Book reviews
Two more fishing publications get the Jeff Prest treatment
106 Wading in
Jeff Prest is surprised when parking the boat for lunch becomes an event in itself
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THIS MONTH’S WINNER
Alexander Jaffrey (aged 12) who caught this 13lb 2oz tiger at Dever Springs. Sent in by Darren Jaffrey.
HOW TO ENTER
Shot of the
MONTH
If you have a flyfishing image that you would like to see here, please send it to us. Images must be: original size • high resolution. Email them to leigh.johnson@bauermedia.co.uk If the image is too large to go over email, send via the free service wetransfer.com (for help see wetransfer.com/howitworks). Published photographers will receive a landing net from Sharpe’s of Aberdeen. Browse their products at www.sharpes.net or call 01466 794415.
Enter our competition now for your chance to win a Sharpe’s landing net
Words & pictures: Peter Gathercole
Browns of BRITTANY
In the mood for a family trip to France where you can catch pretty wild browns like this? Peter Gathercole explains all...
Brittany’s River Elorn is home to some truly beautiful wild browns.
6 TROUT FISHERMAN | JULY 19 - AUGUST 15
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BE INSPIRE D Catch prett y fish in Fra wild n Brittany re ce’s gion
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JULY 19 - AUGUST 15 | TROUT FISHERMAN 7
Words: Gareth Jones Pictures: Peter Gathercole
A 4wt rod, light lines and small flies can be great fun on reservoirs.
12 TROUT FISHERMAN | JULY 19 - AUGUST 15
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TACTICS Catc
h mor with summ e stillwater t er ips
Delicate artistry
Gareth Jones adopts a light approach, normally associated with river fishing, to catch Draycote residents in a calm...
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JULY 19 - AUGUST 15 | TROUT FISHERMAN 13
TACTICS SMALL WATERS Words & pictures: Russ Symons
18 TROUT FISHERMAN | JULY 19 - AUGUST 15
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GO WEST
The two Russells – Weston and Symons – head to Sutton Bingham’s West Pond in search of four brutish fish for £40, terrific value for money!
West Pond trout are strong and wellconditioned specimens.
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JULY 19 - AUGUST 15 | TROUT FISHERMAN 19
TACTICS MEDIUM-SIZE WATERS Words & pictures: Jeffrey Prest
No rainbow,
If your knees, car or schedule rule out a trip to Scotland’s more remote
N
EW York, New York,” goes the song: “so good they named it twice…” I’m not sure the same explanation can be offered for the two Clatto Reservoirs that sit 24 miles apart, either side of Scotland’s Tay estuary, with me at one and Sam Davies at the other; a classic case of crossed wires. I’m not heartbroken to discover that mine appears to be the wrong one. A small, square concrete bowl in Dundee,
24 TROUT FISHERMAN | JULY 19 - AUGUST 15
not even the trendiness of urban fishing can quell inner alarm bells, as I walk through a copse to find no Sam, no boat, no lodge and not so much as a bent pin being pressed into action. When I ask someone pushing a pram around the perimeter if there’s fishing here, it is as if I’ve asked whether Brontosauruses still roam the neighbourhood. Sod’s Law: this was going to be the day
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but a pot of gold
wild brown trout waters, a domesticated version in Fife could be the next best thing when I finally got Sam’s phone number, having corresponded purely by email to this point. As I head south towards Cupar, as briskly as the law allows, I decide he can do what he wants: remonstrate with me, chase me round the reservoir brandishing an oar, even. Anything, as long as he
hasn’t gone home, under the impression that I’m not going to show. Not even the golden cavalcade of gorse on display at the correct Clatto atones for the reservoir’s apparent emptiness when I finally arrive, although a man setting off from the jetty tells me there’s
Sam Davies prepares to welcome another Clatto brownie aboard.
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JULY 19 - AUGUST 15 | TROUT FISHERMAN 25
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TACTICS RESERVOIRS Words: Iain Barr Pictures: Peter Gathercole
Dry WETS?
Iain Barr has a novel method of fishing wet flies at Carsington, one that increases his options...
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JULY 19 - AUGUST 15 | TROUT FISHERMAN 29
Fly-Tying In association with Veniard
trout FIRST FOR TACTICS, TACKLE & WHERE TO FISH
The Kicking CADDIS
Peter Gathercole creates a summer Sedge with bags of movement Visit our website www.veniard.com
TACTICS RESERVOIRS Words: Rob Edmunds Pictures: Peter Gathercole
Drift to FRESH FISH Rob Edmunds and Steve Carew constantly cover new drifts to catch stunning rainbows at Farmoor 1...
40 TROUT FISHERMAN | JULY 19 - AUGUST 15
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All-rounder Steve Carew enjoys a good scrap at Farmoor 1.
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JULY 19 - AUGUST 15 | TROUT FISHERMAN 41
WHERE TO FISH BAHAMAS Words & pictures: Matt Harris
56 TROUT FISHERMAN | JULY 19 - AUGUST 15
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BONES IN SHALLOW SEAS Matt Harris travels to the Bahamas in search of trophy bonefish...
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JULY 19 - AUGUST 15 | TROUT FISHERMAN 57
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