Burrator Fly Fishers: February 2017

I have not been to the Innis Fishery near St Austell before today and I have to report that I should have visited sooner! Six of us met at the car park for the competition which ran from 10am until 3.30pm. The owner of the fishery and England Fly Fishing team member, Dave Johns, gave us information on where he thought the trout would be. We all bought a three fish ticket which allowed us to fish two of the three lakes and the winner of the competition would be the member who netted the largest trout.

It was very overcast with misty patches about when we arrived but brightened up later. There was a gentle southerly breeze that put a nice ripple on the lakes and with an air temperature of around 10C it wasn't particularly cold. We all began by fishing on Sterrick Lake. PeteP was very quickly into a trout using a white and lime green lure on a floating line. PeterM had his on a pheasant tail nymph one of which took very close in under a small overhanging willow bush. I tried several flies including nymphs, a white & green cat's whisker and an orange booby on both floating and sinking lines but, apart from one tug on the booby, I had nothing on the bank after 90 minutes. I changed to a black & green nomad that has a small brass bead to make it sink slowly. On a floating line with a 12' leader I had a pull first cast. The breeze drifted the line across the surface and with a very slow retrieve that's all it took for me to net my three rainbows within the next hour.

PeterM had several roach (or were they rudd?) on his small self weighted pheasant tail nymph plus his three rainbows. Dave Johns came around the lakes several times to see how we were doing. He told me that there were perch & bream in the lake, too, both of which will take a fly. Later Dave was practising on the biggest lake, Carbis, for a forthcoming England match against Scotland. He was using a #7 Sunray floating line and casting an unbelievable distance with relative ease even across the wind. Must check that out!

Peter & I did consider purchasing a catch-and-release ticket for Carbis Lake to continue fishing in the afternoon. But by the time we had lunch, chatted and had a look at the stew ponds we decided to call it a day. A very enjoyable visit to a scenic fishery where we all caught good conditioned rainbows.

Here is the link to the fishery - www.innisflyfishery.co.uk

The results are :- Pete Phillips - 1lb 14oz, 2lb 1oz, 2lb 15oz, Peter Macconnell - 2lb 10oz, 2lb 10oz, 2lb 6oz, David Lye - 2lb 3oz, 2lb 6oz, Kelvin Nikulin - 2lb 10oz, 2lb 3oz, 2lb 4oz, Stuart Payne - 2lb 10oz, 2lb 6oz, 2lb 5oz, Tony Hooper - 1lb 15oz, 2lb 1oz, 2lb 10oz. Pete Phillips had the heaviest rainbow at 2lb 15oz and was declared the winner.