Decided to give Borwick Waters a go for a couple of hours this morning. I’d previously told myself that I wasn’t going back there until well into Spring or even Summer, when the conditions for catching some coarse fish on the fly were more favourable, but, with the weather being so nice, fancied a little experiment to see if I could tempt anything with some deep bloodworm and buzzer patterns.

Arrived at the water for just before 10 and started straight off over in the corner (Griffish), with a bloodworm pattern under a yarn indicator. Tried several other flies, such as white latex grubs (to imitate a maggot?) and various sizes and shades of buzzer, but, after an hour, it was pretty clear nothing was going to happen for me here. So I walked the 5 yards over the road to Gattenby to see if any of the Crucians would play. Same tactics, same result.

Interestingly, there did appear to be several fish feeding. That’s if I’m right about the feeding bubbles that Crucians give off. There were several patches of these moving around the pool. Obviously, I concentrated on these, and I fancied I saw a bit of a take at one point, but didn’t connect with anything. The bubbles were probably marsh gas and the take just the indicator settling, but it kept me interested for an hour…

In my defence, I didn’t really expect to catch anything, and just thought it would be nice to be at the bankside on such a glorious (sunny, crisp and still) day, and to keep my casting hand in. Another plus, I finally gave my ‘new’ intermediate line a swim. It’s been waiting for some use since I got it ages ago and I tried it out for the last ten minutes today, partly because I’ve been meaning to for ages but mainly in anticipation of a planned trip to Stocks Reservoir on the opening weekend (24th Feb), where I think it will be useful. I didn’t want to get there, only to find it floating like a cork, or something. It doesn’t. It sinks like a stone. I thought it was a medium intermediate, but it seems pretty fast to me. Mind you, I’ve only ever fished floating lines before, any sink will seem fast to me!

So, I packed up and was off again by 12. Nipped over to Hallmore Fishery just up the road to have a look at the returns book. Seems like a few are coming out of there again, now, and there are people visiting regularly. Most seem to be catching 1 or 2, with the odd 6 and 8-er mixed in, so looks like it might be worth a visit next weekend, if the weather is reasonable. Otherwise, I’ll stick to the golf.

@21:04:37 under Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish