How to Cast

Casting Instruction, please watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl0yc7LwWrk&feature=emb_logo FISH’N’TIPS Tips for new Rutland Anglers What flies to use throughout the season? And how many do we need?

Let’s simplify things and get back to basics. The first part of a beginner’s guide from Rob Waddington Level 2 Coach and GAIA member, Orvis endorsed fly guide and qualified in coaching both single and double handed fly . Here’s the latest from his Lakeside Lodge on the banks of Rutland Water.

It’s so confusing when you arrive at a new water and see your fellow anglers fishing a myriad of different flies. Many of us have boxes and boxes of the things. There are so many different flies, thousands, if not millions of colours, shapes, variations. So what, and how many do we really need?

An average collection of trout flies contains every style, shape and colour under the sun. Many experienced fly fishers swear by specific hues and rare exotic shades but did you know that there are only really 2 types of fly.

1) Attractors/Lures and 2) Imitative flies

LURES

Lures are very effective fish catching flies, but they do tend to take the fresh stock fish, straight out of the trout farm. While missing their regular dose of trout pellets they’ll take lures as an aggressive reaction, often snapping at anything which looks tempting. There’s nothing wrong with that, as managers often put good quality stock fish in their lake and it’s great to get a pull no matter how. Rutland Water certainly has quality fish stocked into its vastness, up to 80,000 per season!

A selection of Simple Lures The Old Favourite ‘Black and Green Taddy’

The myriad amount of colours and shades available to us may be important or may not. I suggest that often a new colour will be taken if fish get used to the usual Black and Green or White and Green. I tend to put on a sinking black and green tadpole when it’s a dull day and a Green and White Cat’s Whisker on a bright day and this covers all options. Use a variety of lines to get the correct depth that the fish prefer and retrieve giving the long flies movement in the water.

Lure those fish onto your hook!

OK so there’re 2 flies for you.

Boobies are lures which float until they are pulled under by your line, often fished deep on a fast sinker and short leader form when the trout are just off the bottom and the same colourways apply. Tweak it back slowly with varying pulls and stops.

That’s 4 flies covering most lure options

Black and Green and Cat’s Whisker Booby

IMITATIVE FLIES

Lures are all well and good and many people stick these throughout the year, particularly on regularly stocked food-poor waters where there is little natural feeding for hungry trout, but using imitative flies means that you tend to catch the fish which have been in the lake longer. They’ve forgotten about trout pellets and they are actively feeding on what’s naturally out there; growing and becoming bigger, better looking; silver bodies with mother of pearl veins down their fins. Like this picture of a classic Rutland ‘Grown-on’ Rainbow’s tail.

They are harder fighting and if we like to take a fish or two for the pot nicer tasting, having got all the earthy, pellet mush out of their systems, so let’s look at these flies. Grown on trout here have a great taste with deep orange flesh.

Rob, coaching a new fly fisher on what fly to use

So many flies in the box, but what are the trout actually feeding on?

Even in a fly box full of imitative patterns the number of choices can be confusing, so many variations in a myriad of materials. There are too many names of flies to remember but if we wish to make an approximate copy of what the trout are eating out there, it’s important to realise what they eat and that perhaps 70% of any Stillwater trout’s diet is the chironomid midge

No.1 Chironomid midge, (the buzzer.)

This non-biting midge is present in any pond, lake, reservoir, even a bucket in the garden left for a week or so! And these can be anywhere in the world, so it’s the number 1 food item for feeding trout when it appears and therefore our number 1 fly.

However, there are 3 stages to the buzzer and we have to consider which stage the fish are feeding on. Is it the Larvae stage; the pupae or the emerging adult.

It starts its life as a tiny red worm, the Larvae.

The larvae is the first stage, crawling around in the mud and silt and we call it the bloodworm, it tends to stay like this until the water warms up a little, maybe in late spring.

Usually in the early months, March and early April the water is cold and not conducive to producing much in the way of other types of food, so possibly at this time of year, the only thing the trout have to feed on is the bloodworm, which lives on the bottom of the water. It prefers 12-15’ depth over mud or dense undergrowth such as rotting weedbeds.

This is why trout are often found deep down in the early season, it’s where the food is.

Which bloodworm pattern? Super glue/red thread/gold bead/marabou/apps bloodworm/squirmy worm/red buzzer? What a nightmare to decide… actually, does it matter? Use whatever you’re confident with, there’re all versions of the same insect. You could invent a new one today but as long as it’s red with a suggestion of movement, it’ll be a bloodworm imitation and the trout will eat it.

Bloodworm Imitation

When the water warms up, the bloodworm turns into the pupae stage, this is the buzzer we know and love. Slowly wriggling its way up the water level, and sometimes back down again, to eventually reach the surface.

There are thousands of buzzer patterns and we all have our favourites but why not just use a Blakestone, or a Superglue or a Crisp Packet Buzzer (A thin sliver, cut from a spicy niknaks wrapper emulates perfectly the bright orange ‘wing buds’ found on the natural Chironomid!!), you won’t go far wrong with any of these.

Superglue Buzzers

Nature will often kick out different colours of buzzers and sometimes it’s vital to match the colour of the naturals- spoon the fish, swat a flying adult or check the cobwebs around the water and find out the colour of the hatch. Have a selection of black, olive, bright green, brown, grey , claret and amber.

Remember, the flying adult midges have the same colour body as the emerging Pupae and occasionally, trout become so preoccupied with the exact shade of what’s hatching, that they will ignore anything in the wrong colour! Fish these on a floating line with 2 light droppers and a heavier point fly, approx. 5-6 feet apart and retrieve so slowly your almost stopped.

Just wait for the take!

As the emerging buzzer reaches the surface it gets trapped in the surface film and struggles as it develops its wings and legs and may be a good few minutes before it escapes and flies off to apparent safety (and then it’s eaten by a swift or a tern! You wouldn’t want to be a buzzer in this lake, everything wants to eat you!) So for those few minutes, it’s an easy meal for a hungry trout scouting the surface for food. So, use a suspender buzzer fishing it IN or just hanging UNDER the surface – shipmans, cdc emerger, sugar cube buzzer etc.

You can suspend the fly with a foam ‘sugar cube’ or I prefer to use CDC feathers to keep the fly in the surface. CDC, is a naturally buoyant feather found around a mallard’s preen gland and is infused with natural oil. CDC or is loosely translated from the French as ‘Duck’s Arse Feathers’!! So now you know, it’s water tight! I do tend to add a bit of floatant , such as gink just to make sure. Cast to a rising trout or leave static and wait for it to be found.

Sugar Cube and CDC emergers

Why do we call these insects ‘buzzers’? Well, this is an example of a huge hatch of chironomids by my Lakeside Lodge, at Barnsdale, Rutland Water. Get anywhere near this swarm and you’ll certainly hear them buzz!!

So that’s why these are ‘Buzzers over Barnsdale’

Check out these black midges on the car bonnet, get the buzzers on!

When buzzers are about, think about the stage at which it’s being eaten. The colour, the depth it’s being eaten and the size of the natural. All these can influence your decision of which fly to tie on.

What are the other flies we should be using to imitate the trout’s natural food.

Well I firmly believe that there are just SEVEN food items we should consider throughout the season. Let’s go through all of them… so let’s call them….

The Magnificent Seven!

Continuing the article for beginners from licensed coach and guide Rob Waddington on how many flies we really need in our box.

The Magnificent Seven

Number 1 the buzzer

Above, we discussed how many flies we needed. We discussed the buzzer and described it as number 1 in the Magnificent 7 number of food items we should consider.. What are the others?

Number 2 Nymphs

Many bugs which trout feed upon begin life as at the larvae stage on the lake bed. Either in the mud, weeds or under stones. When they hatch into the pupa to swim, wriggle of float to the surface or into weeds or rocks, this is called the Nymph stage. There are many, probably countless types of artificial nymphs, styles such as; , hares ear nymph, Frazer nymph, diawl bach, crunchers plus many more and they all have variations ie Red Holographic diawl bach, UV cruncher etc etc etc. I would suggest that all these variations and patterns are not as important as the overall profile and movability of the fly because basically they are all doing the same job. They look like NOTHING in particular and EVERYTHING in general. Any nymph is a generic ‘bug-like’ insecty fly’

Cruncher Nymph

I suggest that you could tie on a general nymph pattern in March and take it off in December! And have just as good a chance of catching fish as anyone, and I suspect it doesn’t really matter which one you use. Fish 2 or 3 nymphs on a floating or midge tip line, slowly retrieved and if you want to keep your nymphs high in the water if the trout are looking up to eat, then attach a small booby to the point to keep the flies up. This is the excellent ‘Washing Line’ technique.

So general nymphs and buzzers, what’s next? There are more specific food items which we have to consider.

Number 3 Damsel Nymphs

As summer arrives we’ll see hoards of Damsel flies doing their thing usually along our fly rods. If you see this there’s a good chance that the trout will be feeding on the Damsel Nymph, a fascinating creature looking like an olive green tadpole wriggling towards the bank to climb into the sun and turn into the electric blue adult. Notice the rooks waiting to pick them off as they climb up the bankside stones.

Damsel Nymph

A simple pinch of olive or golden olive marabou feather as a tail and a body, add a couple of eyes from a bead chain link (for a plug chain will do) and there’s your perfect damsel imitation. Fish this on a floating or intermediate line and bring back in short pulls or with a fast figure of 8 retrieve.

Number 4 Caddis or Sedge Fly

2 names for the same insect. There are many, many species of sedge fly but they all have long wings and antennae, you’ll have seen them hopping and skipping on the water’s surface in the evening.

Caddis flies start life hidden in a case which they make out of what’s around (gravel, twigs, leaves detritus etc ) and fasten themselves under rocks and stones. Go and lift up a rock and have a look underneath, it looks like sticks but inside every one is a little caddis larvae.

Sedge Fly When the time is right for them, they hatch and swim to the edges, to climb up reeds and weeds to turn into the adult. Trout do feed on this nymph stage which resemble a scruffy hares ear nymph with a bit of amber colour in it, fished as a free lined nymph or as a suspender pattern.

When they dip and hop on the water surface in the evenings, they are laying their eggs for the next generation of Sedge flies and occasionally trout will feed on these tasty morsels (strangely enough not so much in recent years) If they do, you’ll notice that the rise form will be much more aggressive than a fish taking buzzers (remember the emerging buzzers are stuck in the surface film and are not going anywhere fast, so a trout’s rise is a slow, head a tail ‘sup’) these sedges are hopping, skipping and being blown about by the wind, so the trout have to jump, chase and grab their meal.

A fully hackled dry fly skated across the surface can being electrifying takes and follows if and when the trout are eating these sedge flies. It’s worth remembering this on any river you may fish, as a skated G&H SEDGE fly works wonders for the evening rise. On stillwaters fish these static or with a very slow draw.

The final 3 of the Magnificent Seven.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

We’ve already covered numbers 1, buzzers, 2 nymphs, 3 Damsels and

4 Sedges. This time we end the series with the final countdown…

…Number 5: Daphnia

Daphnia, is an important little creature, often known as ‘water flees’ they about the size of a pin head they help keep the water clear by feeding on algae. You can buy pots of it from pet shops to feed your pet fish, and love it they certainly do! There are huge blooms of daphnia in Rutland, mainly in the open water and it provides an easy feast for our trout. All they need to do is open their mouths and gorge on this rich protein rich soup.

Daphnia is Impossibly small to attempt to imitate, and even if we could, there’d be a million real ones next to it. What chance have we got to catch daphnia feeding fish.

How do we catch daphnia feeding fish? And what fly to use?... Simple!

Firstly locate the daphnia blooms. Daphnia can be blown by the winds and undercurrents so note the wind direction to find a likely location. Then, guess the depth of the daphnia; in bright weather it doesn’t need so much sunlight (it uses photosynthesis) so it’ll go deep; in overcast weather it needs more sunlight so it’ll be just under the surface. Where the daphnia is so will the trout be. So get the correct density line to match the depth; Fast Glass/Di3/5/7 etc Then put something big and ugly on the end, I honestly don’t think it matters what, maybe a sparkler, snake, an orange blob (don’t forget the blob was invented to give the competition anglers something as big and ‘in your face’ as is legally allowed for this very reason, I’m sure they’d prefer to use an even bigger fly if the rules allowed!)

Cast it out as far as possible through the daphnia and rip it back as fast as is humanly possible. Long strips, roly-poly, whatever and …bang! An aggressive take as it wizzes past a trout’s nose.

It’s rather like we humans having vegetable soup for lunch, it’s quite ok, and filling, sort of, but if you see a meat pie wafting passed you at the speed of knots getting away then I think we’d all make a grab for it! And that’s what these flies are imitating, the trout equivalent of a meat pie!

This is also why rudder fishing is so successful, dragging a meat pie many hundreds of years till you get a take, it’s bound to cover a fish at some time. Thank goodness for daphnia.

Two Tone Blob and Rutland Sparkler Tube… Meat Pie Flies!

Pull these back as fast as possible, roly poly retrieve of fast stripping. You can’t fish it too quick, don’t give the fish a chance to see that actually this is just a collection of tinsel tied on a hook!

Number 6: Opportunities

These are events which will possibly happen at some point, but which cannot be predicted. Be aware of Hawthorn flies blowing onto the surface in the Spring; migrating snails, occasionally float to the surface and drop down to feed on another patch of weed; Daddy Longlegs strewn across the water; an explosion of shrimps. All these items can be grouped into one section, opportunities. If the fish lock onto any of these items, fishing without a realistic imitation is fruitless. Shrimps are becoming a feature of the trout’s diet in Rutland and other large stillwaters, so keep a look out for these in the margins in and amongst the stones and rocks, if they are about try a scruffily tied nymph such as the Hares Ear Nymph as above. So always be aware of what’s happening around you and on the water. Check for any opportunities for the trout and for us.

Foam Bodied Daddy Longlegs

Imitate the movement of the natural insect, ie skated Daddy Longlegs, static snails, pulsationg shrimps etc.

And finally….

Number 7: COARSE FISH FRY

Around May we usually see clouds of pin fry along the banks establishing themselves and hiding in any rocks or weed cover away from searching predatory trout. These are the progeny of the massive shoals of roach, bream, zander and perch which breed quite happily in Stillwaters.

We all know how difficult fishing at this time can be. The fry are tiny and leads us to casting and casting at swirls and rises as trout hoover up this soup-like feast only for them to disappear and slash at another cloud of jelly-like fry outside casting range, very frustrating though exciting fishing. To outwit fry feeding trout, try a small cdc nymph, cast it out and leave it static for the trout to find without casting at everything you see.

Well, come the Autumn; September, October and November, the survivors of those tiny specs will be up to 4” in length and have become a feast for the trout. Especially if a cold snap hits the daphia, buzzers, corixa and shrimp. It may be that the trout turn their attention away from the open water and back into the weedbeds and bankside rocks, hunting for these baby coarse fish. As can be seen with this picture of a fry feeding September brown trout regurgitating its last meal.

Minkies are probably the best fry imitation and with an added foam sugar cube head which produces an enticing ‘plop’ as you gurgle it through the surface, try minky boobies, popper minkies or any surface fry pattern.

The poor fry a are being hammered by trout from underneath and from the gulls and terns from the air and many are to be found dead, dying or stunned on the surface. Easy pickings for big grown on specimen trout. Use floating fry patterns for some heart stopping action. Watch the birds and find the ‘baitballs’

Rob’s home tied ‘Deerhair tandem Perch’ Fry’

Minky and Popper Minky, great fry patterns

So in conclusion, I would suggest that if you look into any fly box or tackle shop fly department you could put all the flies you see into 1 of the 7 categories above or else it would be a lure.

So why don’t I just have seven flies in my box? Well….. I can’t imagine going fishing with just 1 buzzer or 1 nymph for example, we fly fishers just like stuff don’t we and lots of it! Boxes and boxes of all the main flies in a galaxy of styles and colours the only limitation is our own imagination or creativity.

The right fly! One of Rob’s pupils got it right this time!