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 fishing guide and qualified in coaching both single and double handed fly casting. 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 fishery 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 Cul De Canard 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 fly fishing coach and guide Rob Waddington on how many flies we really need in our box.