June 2008

  Upon speaking to certain anglers and reading some catch reports from the Welsh Sea Trout rivers, a keen Sea Trout angler stuck at home unable to travel, can be forgiven for becoming somewhat fidgety this time of year, Mr Ron Holloway sums up these feelings excellently, I quote.."The heart races as the blood is stirred when news filters through that the Salmon are in or there is a large fly hatch and the Trout are rising well"..... Of course these words of truth are also applicable to Sea Trout fishing.
After the seemingly endless frustration of the winter months, where we longed for a return of those beautiful evenings sat on the riverbank after the sun has gone down, waiting for the "Green" to dissapear from the grass and trees, in readiness to slip into the river to wade silently through like a ghost in the night, those first images of Sea Trout being caught anywhere in the UK can make a man go insane.....!

However all said and done, by Welsh standards the Sea Trout fishing up to now has alledegly been fairly slow, and the first welcome flood up here which came in the later days of June has not made any real difference to the fishing prospects either, apart from giving the river bed a good swill out, clearing algea and tempting "the odd" Sea Trout here and there into the systems.
Senior anglers up here always swear by the "Second" good flood of the summer to really bring the fish in...

In late May I was approached at home by a commitee member of Millom Anglers, with the unfortunate news that in mid 2009 the trout fishery that the association rent "Baystone Bank Reservour" is due to close. This came as devastating news because many people enjoy the use of this beautiful fishery and have happy memories of it, myself included, if you remember this was the location where Millie caught her fish which won her the Millom Anglers Brown Trout Cup for the 2007 season.

Therefore arangements are to be discussed for members of Millom Anglers be able to fish Hodbarrow when Baystone Bank closes, and the club has also offered to assist me with the funding of stocking Hodbarrow fish. Hodbarrow is a fishery in Millom, and Millom Anglers is the club for local people, so why not......


My son Jay playing out a fish at Baystone Bank, many moons ago..

Staying on news regarding Hodbarrows future, I am pleased to announce that on the 20th of this month, I had the enormous pleasure of meeting Phill from Dunsop Trout farm when he came to stock Hodbarrow. In remembering the outcome of the initial stocking of similar sized Brown Trout four years ago, it makes sense to attempt to throttle up the numbers in the lagoon with any available funds and further introduce this size of fish shown below, capitalising on the readily available food source present to quickly rear them to landing size.

Patience is the name of the game here, and the project has recieved enormous support from many directions. Remember that the only reason why the owner of Hodbarrow began stocking the lagoon all those years ago was to simply try and reduce the insect life, these little fellas "and ladies" will do a better job of that than the 16-20lb beasts that lurk way out in Hodbarrows gloomy depths. Even those regularly introduced 1lb rainbows of days gone by didnt stop on Midge larve etc for that long, not once they got a taste for minnows and stickleback, there growth rate was enough evidence of that.

 May I also advise that the reason we stocked this time of year in the region of the lagoon that we did was taking into account that due to the water temperature being fairly high, this historically has seen that the bigger fish that could prove to be a threat to these smaller ones are usually away out in the main body of the lake, well away from the safety of  where these small fish were introduced.

It gave me great pleasure to capture and to be able to display the following images here on Stsflyfishing,  to some degree they may prove to become quite symbolic in Hodbarrows timeline and the future of the fishery. Some of these little fish will evade predation and will grow to eventually become sexually mature, succesfully reproducing alongside the stock of Browns from four years ago, generating more momentum in creating a fishery that could be enjoyed by all members for generations to come...

Something that Peter Jensen from Denmark reminded me of regarding these fish, and is actually qute funny when you see these images, is that in three years time, to maybe stand a chance of landing and seeing one of these fellas again in the flesh, your gonna have to bring your 7# outfits as a minimum.....!!!









enjoy the ride.......!








In the shallows of there new home..




The tiny Brown Trout scoping out the sticklebacks already.......!




It didnt take them long to suss out where the current manageable food is, and they soon dispersed, safe journey little fellas "and ladies"...
 hope to see you in about three years time!!



Finally the Mullet in Cumbria are everywhere in huge numbers now, in river bottoms, in the surf, on the beaches, in coming tides, outgoing tides, you name it they are there. If you really want to catch the UK Bonefish and are stuck for flies to use or dont know how to start fishing for them, please visit this page to purchase mullet flies after reading this basic introduction to Mullet Fishing....

Or you can register at this new online discussion forum hosted by the main site and ask ANY questions there. It is a little slow to kick off with as current member numbers are few and the forum is still in its infancy, however the anglers that are on there already are all Mullet fanatics who regularly catch fish, and will help whenever they can. Once more Mullet anglers find out about the new site and hopefully register, we hope to create a friendly network of helpfull Mullet flyfishers, with plenty of opportunities to organise meets etc, using the forum as a base camp.....



Best Regards and Tightlines for July....!

Lee.


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