Fishing Report at July 1st 2014

River fishing has been off the scale, with good catches to both dry fly and nymph tactics. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s all over post Mayfly time, their is much more going on than just mayfly. Taking time to watch is key and something I continually remind people. While it’s true that you have to have your fly in the water to catch, it’s equally true that continually casting the wrong flies in the wrong place, at the wrong time will ensure you don’t catch much!

As far as trout fishing goes, rivers are the place to be in July and August for the best daytime fishing. If nothing is hatching, a dry fly approach with terrestrials is often effective, while nymph fishing is most productive overall. Settled evenings mean the prospect of the evening rise. Get tactics right and you can catch more in an hour than you have all day, get it wrong and it’s the most frustrating hour of the day.

On the lakes, fishing has become tougher, earlier this year, as lakes warmed faster and everything moved forward. While it’s easy to say the water is too warm and the trout lethargic, most fisheries have areas of cooler water, so go find them. Fishing early and late is most productive and remember it’s not just rivers that have an evening rise, the same goes for stillwaters.

The bottom line on stillwaters is, their is now so much food, the trout are filling up fast, feeding for less time and your fly has a lot of competition. In addition to plentiful bug life, many lakes are seeing huge numbers of pin fry from this years productive spawning of species like roach and perch,see below.

Where trout are gorging on pin fry, using a team of flies is going to give you more chance (assuming rules allow), then match this up with the correct fly line and you are in the game. Another crucial tactic whether you use one fly or more is spotting feeding fish or signs of them. Quickly get your fly into the area and you put a fly closer to a feeding trout’s mouth. Immediately you increase the chance of what it eats being your fly. Sound obvious? Great! If it’s new to you, even better, you just learned something else to massively improve your catches this summer.

So, now you know when to go and have some idea of what to try, you are set for some good fishing. If you need help selecting the right setup, casting multiple fly rigs or casting in tight situations, selecting the right flies, finding the fish on river and/or lake, booking a lesson is your fast track to success. Call or email to discuss your requirements today.