Beginner has all the luck when she tries fly fishing

Helen with the rainbow trout she caught. Picture: Bob Smith

The mix of weather this week, from really cold with strong northerly winds to mild with lovely breezes, has made the fishing challenging at times and quite easy on other occasions writes Bob Smith.

On Wednesday afternoon, I gave a coaching session to a lady, Helen, who had never fly fished before, but always wanted to give it a try.

I took her to a sheltered spot so she could learn to cast across the wind. After six casts the line tightened and I told Helen how to play the trout without giving the fish any slack line, so the barbless fly could not become detached from the fish.

The fish was really strong, but eventually Helen got it to the surface and we saw that it was a good rainbow trout weighing six-and-a-half pounds.Later in the session, she landed an even heavier lovely spotted brown trout.

This trout had a lure in its mouth, so it had obviously snapped someone else’s line.

It was quickly photographed and returned to the water, where it disappeared into the depths.Thrunton Long Crag reports lots of fish caught, with four rods catching limited bags of 20 trout in a single session.

One angler returned a 14 pound rainbow trout and an 11 pound brown in their bag of 20 fish.Chatton fishery held a heat of the Puddle Pairs Competition at the weekend.

The rod average was over seven trout and the top three pairs all recorded more than 20 fish.

Chatton’s bait lake will reopen on the last day of the month, March 31, after it has been stocked.