FREE UK & IRELAND STILLWATER GUIDE FIRST FOR TACTICS, TACKLE & WHERE TO FISH
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Early summer
SKILLS Proven flies & methods Damsel Nymphs Life cycle & hot tips
23 MAY - 19 JUNE, 2018 | £3.60
ISSUE 510
EXPLORE DONEGAL
120
loughs await!
SMALL WATERS
UNDER A BUNG
Fail-safe ways to catch fish
RESERVOIRS
OFF THE TOP
Surface sport at Blithfield
VENUE SPOTLIGHT
DERWENT
A north-eastern jewel
TACKLE TESTS
HELP BUYING? Read our honest reviews
Contents
BE INSPIRED
64 How to...
Derbyshire’s River Wye offers the fly angler a unique experience – fishing for truly wild rainbows
68 Tackle advice
TACTICS
FLY-TYING
Peter Cockwill uses the controversial ‘indicator’ method to tempt fussy fish
Peter Gathercole shows you how
Cover image by: Peter Gathercole
6 Call of the wild
12 Give me some indication COVER STORY
18 Two-pronged attack
Russ Symons switches between nymphs and lures to find success at Kennick Reservoir
24 Donegal’s upland loughs
OFFERS 47 Subscription offer
Save up to 51% when you subscribe to Trout Fisherman magazine this month
90 Reader offer
Half-price Daiwa Lexa Fly rods from Glasgow Angling Centre
COVER STORY Jeff Prest tours the many loughs of Donegal with the locals
31 Seasonal changes
Russ Symons ties a Skinny Buzzer
76 Fastmail flies of the month
Six deadly Damsel patterns and how to fish them
78 Flymasters
Peter Gathercole judges your close-copy Damsel Nymph patterns and sets a new challenge
COVER STORY Robbie Winram reviews the latest gear including Daiwa’s Lexa Fly rods and Greys jackets
Phil Dixon’s surface tactics for a slightly coloured Blithfield Reservoir COVER STORY
42 Beat the algae
How to catch trout despite algae and one fishery’s way of dealing with it
Life cycle and fishing tips
WHERE TO FISH 51 UK waters
Four top stillwaters to visit this month
54 Spotlight on... COVER STORY
Bank hotspots for Derwent Reservoir
56 Experience Panama
John Horsey enjoys catching a variety of hardfighting fish off the Panama coast
ADVICE
60 Advice squad
TF’s experts answer your questions on straightened hooks, browns from the Lakes and much more...
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72 Flybox fillers
36 Scratching the surface
COVER STORY
JOIN OUR COMMUNITY
69 Tie a Mayfly
TACKLE
48 Damsels
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Snowbee’s Simon Kidd on Buzzer-fishing gear
Mike Handyside’s diaries reveal how his local river changes through the year
FOCUS ON...
PRINT AND DIGITAL EDITIONS AVAILABLE
Catch in a mayfly hatch
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83 New gear
88 Fly-tying products
Thinskin selection packs, African goat dubbing, Block Fritz and a new Hanak jig hook
OPINION & NEWS 82 Book reviews
Two books and a video get the Jeffrey Prest treatment
92 News
The latest from the trout scene
96 Letters
Trout Fisherman readers have their say on old flies, multi-purpose fishing and Sparctic trout
98 Cockwill
Peter Cockwill writes a light-hearted reflection on angling’s near-misses
99 Troutmasters
Are you among this month’s badge winners? Plus we feature your catch pictures
106 Wading in
Jeffrey Prest writes about the appeal of the old fibreglass rods
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THIS MONTH’S WINNER
Brandon Porter, age 8, enjoying his local water Mere Beck Trout Fishery. Sent in by Sean Porter
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 Sharpes 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: Paul Richardson Pictures: Peter Gathercole
Unique beauty, a wild rainbow with a transparent tail.
6 TROUT FISHERMAN | MAY 23 - JUNE 19
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BE INSPIRE D And now f something or trul unique... y
Words & pictures: Oxoxox xoxo
Call of THE WILD Paul Richardson fishes one of the richest rivers in the UK for truly wild rainbows
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MAY 23 - JUNE 19 | TROUT FISHERMAN 7
Words: Peter Cockwill Pictures: Peter Gathercole
Give me some INDICATION
Peter Cockwill uses the controversial indicator method to tempt fussy fish ...
12 TROUT FISHERMAN | MAY 23 - JUNE 19
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TACTICS Catch m
ore w early summ ith stillwater t er ips
Peter Cockwill prepares to net a feisty rainbow at Frensham fishery.
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MAY 23 - JUNE 19 | TROUT FISHERMAN 13
TACTICS MEDIUM WATERS Words & pictures: Russ Symons
Early season at Kennick Reservoir. When the sun came out so did the anglers.
18 TROUT FISHERMAN | MAY 23 - JUNE 19
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Two-pronged ATTACK
Russ Symons warns against becoming stuck on a particular method as he switches between nymphs and lures to find success at Kennick Reservoir
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MAY 23 - JUNE 19 | TROUT FISHERMAN 19
TACTICS UPLAND IRISH LOUGHS Words & pictures: Jeff Prest
24 TROUT FISHERMAN | MAY 23 -JUNE 19
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A lough a day, for four months Withdrawing from public life? There may be no better place to lose yourself. We glimpse but a fraction of what’s on offer in an Irish fishing wonderland…
Michael and Robert talk tactics, while the author, out of shot, makes sure his car’s sump is still attached.
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MAY 23 - JUNE 19 | TROUT FISHERMAN 25
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QUOTE offer code FEAA TERMS & CONDITIONS: *51% saving when you choose the print and digital package option and pay by recurring payment. Subscriptions will start with the next available issue. The minimum term is 13 issues. Payments by Direct Debit will continue to be taken unless you tell us otherwise and you will not receive a renewal reminder. This offer closes on 20th June 2018. This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. Cost from landlines for 01 numbers per minute are (approximate) 2p to 10p. Cost from mobiles per minute (approximate) 10p to 40p. Costs vary depending on the geographical location in the UK. You may get free calls to some numbers as part of your call package – please check with your phone provider. Order lines open 8am-9.30pm (Mon-Fri), 8am-4pm (Sat). UK orders only. Overseas? Please phone +44 1858 438828 for further details. Calls may be monitored or recorded for training purposes. Full terms and conditions: www.greatmagazines.co.uk/offer-terms-and-conditions
TACTICS RIVERS Words & pictures: Mike Handyside
SEASONAL CHANGES
S
Mike Handyside reflects on the trials and tribulations when learning a new river in one year
EASONAL change is a refreshment we look forward to. Wise, late-winter grayling make way for rejuvenating brown trout, awakening from long, cold months. Then, in autumn, grayling dodge leaves, determined to take food brought by the current. They feed hard on emerging uprights, undisturbed by boisterous browns, whose priority is now defending spawning gravels in their need to breed. And many rivers, blessed by a lack of man-made obstructions, offer navigation for migration, allowing silver travellers to join these dark resident trout and pewter-coloured grayling. In summer, fat, lazy brownies relax and
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play hard to get, gorged on mayfly, when the lucky flyfisher welcomes a first glimpse of ‘grey ghosts’ under the alders. Not that catching one of these sea-trout will be any easier than the night-owl existence required of the angler who would make it happen. A second run of visitors will arrive as the green leaves darkens and the first late summer rains swell the streams, before more persistent autumn rain lifts levels further, allowing greater numbers of salmon to pass upstream. Leaving the sandy rivers of the Cheshire plain, I ventured out in the hilly valley moulded by the Ice Age’s advance and retreat. The medium-sized Welsh border river was a far cry from my previous
haunt, offering far more spawning gravel, deposited from the surrounding uplands and populated with large numbers of wild trout. While the days of supplementing river populations with fertile stockies are gone, today’s wild fish remain a product of man’s interference. A most ‘plastic’ species, the brown trout’s different strains have been mixed for hundreds of years, an exercise documented back to the Industrial Revolution at least, when trains would carry fry in barrels from as far as Scotland, before they were taken to the river’s edge by horse and cart, something the textbook fishery managers like to ignore, preferring a mythology of all things pure and unadulterated...
MAY 23 - JUNE 19 | TROUT FISHERMAN 31
TACTICS RESERVOIRS Words: Phil Dixon Pictures: Peter Gathercole
Flying high. Phil Dixon prepares to net an acrobatic rainbow.
36 TROUT FISHERMAN | MAY 23 - JUNE 19
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Scratching the surface
Phil Dixon reports on his first trip to Blithfield this year – a fishery with a tinge of colour but some of the best surface sport in the UK
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MAY 23 - JUNE 19 | TROUT FISHERMAN 37
SPECIAL READER OFFER
HALF PRICE DAIWA LEXA FLY RODS
*
THIS month’s great offer from Glasgow Glasgo Angling Centre is the Daiwa Lexa Fly rod, made in the UK, and available a in a range of styles to cover every discipline of fly-fishing. fl The rod was given Trout Fisherman’ss Tackle Tester’s Choice award when it was reviewed in T May 2014. It is available to Trout Fisherman readers in eight models from an 8ft-9ft 3wt to a 10ft 8wt (see panel, right). F Features of this four-piece rod include: HVF ‘high volume fibre’ carbon construction ● Stainles Stainless steel snakes ● Alconite stripper guides ● Supplied in a travel tr tube with compartments The River Special is the 9ft 4wt model with its responsive tip allowing allo for faster line pick-up and swifter application of casting cas power for short, sharp, accurate casting. The Nymph Specials at 8ft 3wt and 9ft 3/4wt 3/ utilise a similar ‘tip feel’ but incorporate incorpor a onefoot intermediate section that eextends and transforms the performance of each model. This makes them ideal for French F leader setups as well as standard lines. The Stillwater single rated r models come in five sizes from 9ft 6in 6wt to 10ft 8wt, capable of fishing across acros the spectrum of line densities, from floating to intermediate and deeper. deeper
(* Plus £6.99 p&p. Offer available while stocks last).
HOW TO ORDER
Quote ‘Trout Fisherman offer’ and code 00132TF. Please state rod size you require.
Tackle Tester’s Choice
FROM ONLY
£115
DAIWA LEXA
RRP
NOW
8ft-9ft 3wt
£230.00
£115
9ft 4wt
£240.00
£120
9ft 6in 6wt
£250.00
£125
9ft 6in 7wt
£250.00
£125
9ft 6in 8wt
£250.00
£125
9ft-10ft 3/4wt
£250.00
£125
10ft 7wt
£265.00
£137.50
10ft 8wt
£265.00
£137.50
Tel: 0141 212 8880 Fax: 0141 331 6340 Email: sales@fishingmegastore.com Website: http://gac.fishing/00132TF/ Or by Post: Glasgow Angling Centre Ltd, Unit 1, The Point, 29 Saracen St, Glasgow G22 5HT
Fly-Tying In association with Veniard
trout FIRST FOR TACTICS, TACKLE & WHERE TO FISH
Wulff MAYFLY
Peter Gathercole ties a dry that mayfly-feeding trout can’t resist Visit our website www.veniard.com
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