Friday 10 April 2015

Burrator Tuesday 7th April 2015

The Easter bank holiday enjoyed a spell of warm, sunny and settled weather.  I visited Burrator on the Tuesday and parked at Longstone.  David Lye had just arrived and was setting up to fish by the ruined manor house.  I walked around to the shore between there and the Sheepstor Dam - an area I had not previously fished.  The water level had dropped below the level of the sill exposing more of the lakebed which makes the backcast a lot easier!

There was  a gentle breeze from the east or north east.  Later in the morning the few clouds burned off and it became very sunny for the rest of the day.  There were lots of trout dimpling and occasionally making a big splash on the calm surface.  A few buzzers drifted past me but I felt that most of the trout activity was sub-surface.  I tried a black marabou tailed Nomad with an orange fritz body weighted with a small gold bead on a floating line and a ten foot leader.  Almost instant success as I landed my first Blue Trout from Burrator.  It was around 2lb.  I had lots of tugs at the fly but I suspected they were just nibbling at the longish marabou tail.  I had two more Rainbows of under 2lb and later tried a Montana but still had lots of plucks and tugs without hooking any more along that shore.  I walked back to Longstone where David was fishing.  We were joined by Terry Denley, who was not fishing, and a little later by Peter Macconnell. 

Kit Hancock arrived to supervise a restocking by Paul Evenden of Milemead Fisheries. These restockings are based on anglers catch returns so it is vital that catch returns are submitted at the end of the day.  I asked Paul about a visit to his fishery near Tavistock by members of the BFF to see the production of trout.  He said he and his brother, Andrew, would be pleased to show us around but due to a re-organisation of the trout farm at Milemead he would prefer us to visit early in the New Year and before the season opens in March 2016.  We agreed that I will contact him nearer the time to make arrangements.

David had to leave at lunchtime.  Peter & I continued fishing until later in the afternoon when Peter left to check on the boats.  We should be able to start using them next week.  Both of us had our bag limits of five fish.

My first Burrator Blue Trout

David & Terry enjoying a cup of tea

David plays a trout

Peter's trout taking the air

In the net

Another Kelly Kettle brew

Two matching 2lb-ers

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