Arrived at the fishery at around 10am and set up with the usual 2 fly rig, skinny olive buzzer on the point with a red holo Diawl Bach on the dropper, this time.

Long story short, hacked around with the usual suspects for several depressing hours - various buzzers, nymphs and the usually reliable shipman’s, with and without retrieving, with and without a bung, but without a fish. In fact, I didn’t even get a take, as far as I know.

Totally overstayed in an attempt to get something on, which just made it worse. I’d originally planned to leave around 1 at the latest, but ended up staying ’til after 2. Depressing.

Weather conditions were pretty bad, though. No rain, but a steady and strong wind chopped up the lake making presentation and bite detection difficult to impossible, made casting awkward to dangerous and dragged the temperature down with the chill factor. Saw a couple of fish come out to sunk line tactics (Cat’s Whisker in at least one case, according to the catch return of one guy who finished before I did).

The only thing I got out of the day was to try out not one but two new items of kit. Item one was not really a specific fishing item, but was the new Thermos flask I got for Xmas, so I had a cup of Bovril in the ‘Fisherman’s Shelter’ at around 12.30, and I carried the flask in the second item, my new Fishpond backpack/vest pack. This is the ‘Glacier’ vest pack, no longer listed on the Fishpond site. It seems pretty good, but I’m a bit disappointed with the size, really. I struggled to get my waterproofs and the flask in comfortably, and there would be little or no room for, say, a sandwich box or, indeed, any tackle in addition. I’d hoped that the backpack part would be pretty spacious as I was hoping to do a bit of hiking and fishing later this year, but I’d struggle to fit food, drink, clothing and sufficient tackle (reels being the main problem) for a full day in this bag, contrary to Fishpond marketing. Disappointing also is the rod tube system. This allows you to strap two rod tubes alongside the backpack, but the attachment to hold the base of the tube is like a cup holder, in effect, and sits level with the bottom of the pack. This means that this is where the bottom of the rod tube also sits, so a tube much longer than the height of the backpack would be quite awkward to carry. I trialled this with a rod tube containing my 9′6 4 piece rod, which is pretty short really, and this was manageable (I wouldn’t normally have bothered carrying this around with me, of course), but anything longer would be tricky. This means all of my other rods! I’ll have to try this, but I think they’d make the whole pack too top heavy, and would possibly flip themselves out as well. Maybe not, I’ll give it a trial sometime. This may be going back on eBay, though. The quality is excellent, I think I need something bigger, though. I shouldn’t think I would buy another such pack without seeing it first!

Anyway, in conclusion, winter fly fishing really sucks unless the weather is right, and I need a sinking line. I think I’m going to sack off the fishing unless the weather is kind, and spend the time with the family, or possibly on a little golf! I’d much rather do that than spend several freezing hours joylessly dragging a Cat’s Whisker back along the bottom of a lake with more white horses than Morecambe Bay…

@22:39:16 under Fishing , Fishing Shorts