Season to date
Northumbrian Water Go Fishing - Ranger's Weekly Fishing Review - 20 August 2007
| Trout fisheries |
No.rods |
No. trout caught |
Best rainbow |
Best brown |
| Grassholme |
326 |
1,116 |
9lb |
|
| Kielder Water |
179 |
370 |
4lb 6oz |
1lb 8oz |
| Fontburn |
212 |
1,441 |
8lb 6oz |
|
| Scaling |
161 |
509 |
4lb 4oz |
|
| Derwent |
336 |
963 |
|
|
| Hury |
18 |
|
|
|
| Blackton |
38 |
150 |
4lb 8oz |
|
| Whittle Dene |
64 |
|
|
|
| Cow Green |
11 |
42 |
|
|
Rangers review
Fontburn
Best fish: 8lb 6oz, Nigel Little.
Best flies: Boobies, Consett Budgies or Buzzers.
Best bait: Powerbait Eggs and worms.
Best areas: South Shore.
The Best fishing ever was the comment at Fontburn this week with the rod average a massive 6.8 fish per angler!! Cooler temperatures made the conditions perfect for fishing with most anglers catching on the ledger or floating lines. Family friends the Blowers and the Keys fished togetherand caught 40 fish weighing a total of over 60lb.
Regular Isabell Adams from Rothbury caught her limit weighing 18lb in only 2 hours using ledgeredOrange Powerbait Eggs. T Scott caught 4 fish weighing over 15lb all on a Black Booby on the Dam Wall. Best overall tactics have been ledgered Powerbait and worms for bait anglers and floating lines with a 20ft leader and a team of Buzzers fished around in the wind for fly anglers.
Scaling Dam
Best fish: Two Rainbows at 4lbs 4oz.
Best flies: Diawl Bach and Montana.
Best baits: Powerbait and Maggot.
Best areas: West End of the Dam Wall.
The West end of the Dam Wall at Scaling Dam was the place to be for rod bending action of the reservoir and were feeding closer to the margins. With the rod average reaching 5, the majority of anglers fishing this location enjoyed fantastic sport. Mark Sivills from Brotton had a day to remember on Wednesday, fishing with the new £25, two rod permit, Mark had his full 12 fish limit by lunchtime. After the purchase of a second permit, he landed a further 10 rainbows by 4pm. Swim feeder with maggots and Powerbait on the hook was his very successful method. Several anglers switching to the swim feeder also caught full limits.The fish moving in closer to the Dam Wall was a big plus for fly anglers, who located the fish feeding in the top couple of feet of water. Regular fly fisherman Neil Benjamin form Normanby found Diawl Bach and Montana hugely successful patterns, catching and returning 11 fish during his morning session. With a further 700 Rainbows stocked the lively action should continue.
Derwent
Best catch: 24lb - D. Fox.
Best flies: Small traditional flies such as the Black Pennel, Zulu and Hoppers.
Best baits: Cocktail of worm and Green Powerbait with Greedy Bait in a feeder.
Best areas: Between first and second fence on bait and The Meadow on fly.
Rod average hits five!!
We continue to see a gradual improvement in the fishing at Derwent with the week's rod average almost 3 fish per angler, the best since late May. Most fish are being caught deep on both the fly and the bait with the fish still preferring the deeper, cooler water. Bait anglers are doing best between the first and the second fence with ledgered Powerbait and worm the prime baits.Anglers at this time of year must be willing to roam the banks in search of the fish so fishing light and mobile is the key. This is perhaps the reason why the fly anglers are doing better than bait anglers at present as it is easier for them to travel light and cover more fish. Small traditionals are the best flies but never discount the lures as they will always take the more naive, freshly stocked fish. The best catch of the week was Mr L Wilkinson who netted 8 fish for 22lb. To encourage the improvement in catches we are treble stocking the reservoir this week with 2,000 fish for the Bank Holiday weekend.
Blackton
Best flies: Dawson's Olive, Black Fritz, Orange Fritz, Bibio, Soldier Palmer, Teal Blue and Claret & Orange.
Best area: Dam Wall, West End Pasture, Low Rigg.
Only 57 anglers took advantage of the excellent sport on offer at Blackton this week. Stocking took place on Wednesday with some fine Lartington fish to 6lb then some double figure fish were added on Thursday. Those stay away anglers missed out on a cracking 3.8 fish rod average. The best catch was 17lb for K James - one of Thursday's fish would beat that on its own!
Sport with floating lines has been good with settled warm weather bringing the fish to the top with Hoppers and Heather Fly taking some nice catches. Smaller sizes of lures have had good results with intermediate lines and slow sinkers when conditions have been bright.
Whittle Dene
Best areas: Lower and Great Southern.
Best baits: Maggots.
Best methods: Pole.
Top rod this week was R Allen with the heaviest net of the week weighing 22lb. Roach up to 1lb have been caught in the Great Southern Lake this week, with those anglers who were willing to walk rewarded with large catches. However, J Haxon fishing peg 44 on the Lower caught 16lb of mainly Roach.
Kielder
Best catch: 4lb 6oz rainbow.
Best bait: Worm and ledgered maggot.
Best areas: Hawkhope, Elf Kirk & Tower Knowe.
Best flies: Black Chenille, Appetizer & Jack Frost.
The heaviest fish of the week was recorded at Leaplish and was caught at the Riever's Rest on worm a rainbow of 4lb 6oz. Ian Atkinson had the heaviest total weight of the week at 24lb 2oz fly fishing from a boat at The Belling. The cooler weather this week has favoured bait anglers with below Elf Kirk and on the North Shore at Hawkhope being the best areas from the bank. The Golden Trout that were stocked to mark Kielder's 25th anniversary have remained elusive to the anglers with only one being caught to-date. There have been numerous sightings from the shoreline at Hawkhope and also at the Tower Knowe Visitor Centre.
Grassholme
Best flies: Dawson's Olive, Cat's Whisker, Bibio, G & H Sedge, Black Hopper.
Best baits: Ledgered Orange Powerbait.
Best areas: Dam Wall, North Shore, West End car park bank.
Good fishing abounds at Grassholme with warm settled weather bringing the fish to the anglers nets. Novice anglers Lauren and Alexandra Trulson aged 12 and 10 respectively had a wonderful day catching five rainbows on Powerbait and worm cocktail on Thursday whilst in the area on holiday; it was the first time they have fished and they had a 10lb 7oz catch to show for it!
Lots of fish have been taken close to the top with floating lines and Hoppers working well, a couple of good catches were also taken on float and worm earlier in the week. Sunny weather later in the week sent the fish down into deeper water when small orange lures and sinking lines worked well for the fly anglers and ledgers cast out to around 25 metres proved successful for the bait anglers using worm and Orange Powerbait Eggs.
Grassholme was again stocked with 900 quality Lartington rainbows on Wednesday and half a dozen double figure fish on Thursday two of which weighed twenty pounds plus and fin perfect. There is now a good number of doubles in the lake just waiting to be caught.
Hury
Best method: Sweetcorn, maggot, hemp, pole and waggler.
Best Net: 83 roach (weight unknown).
Best areas: Newhouse Bay, the boil at the Top End, North corner Dam Wall.
Newhouse Inlet was the place to be says Mr N. Anderson with a whopping 83 roach haul, also doing well was Mr A. Ward with a 20 fish net, maggot and sweetcorn proving to be a lethal bait. Mr P. Upton also had a good return of roach with a weight of 25lb in the net.
Please remember that any brown trout caught if possible must be returned, many thanks.
Cow Green
Best flies: Bibio, Black Hoppers, Kate Mclaren, Buzzers, Small Heather fly.
Best bait: Worm, Maggot (either on the float).
Best areas: Best fished on the move.
Cow Green continues to produce good returns as a brown trout fishery as Mr T. Nattrass will testify, catching 14 fish and returning them all. Also having successful days were Mr P. Blyth who returned seven and Mr S. Noble who returned eight. Good sport is on offer and every now and then a fish of takeable size comes to the net!