Between one storm of rain and the next, our normally clear lake has suffered from a series of flushes draining muddy water from the pastures above. As a result, the fishing has been more than difficult at times. Colin Pickles did better than the rest of us this week, with four rainbows taken on nymphs and buzzers suspended below an indicator. And that method might be your best starting point, but do ring to check the water is clear before coming.

My own day was one of the hard ones, with no more than 3-4 inches visibility in the murky water. After a whole morning without a touch, having run through a gamut of different methods and different flies, I was more or less resigned to scoring a blank and wondered why I bothered to fish on. Very few fish were showing at the surface and how to tell where the rest of them were? Then, mid-way through the afternoon, I had a knock on a size 12 Black and Peacock Spider fished slowly in mid-water on an intermediate line, which encouraged me to carry on a bit longer. Half an hour later, facing a keen wind blowing cold rain in my face and casting the same line and fly parallel to sedge beds along the farmhouse bank, the rod-tip suddenly slammed over in the most satisfying way. After a few kicks and determined plunges towards the sedges, I was starting to think that it might be something large and a minute later a broad spotted flank revealed itself through the froth. When netted, it turned out to be brown of 22 inches, which I estimated at between 41/2 and 5 pounds. These fish are out of season of course, but as this one was a triploid, I doubt it came to much harm. Big browns look and behave very like pike, ambushing from cover, and while I remove the hook from those well-toothed maws before releasing, I sometimes wonder about the safety of our spring ducklings. Frogs, voles and even rats have turned up inside brown trout at times. Encouraged by that one success, I fished on till dusk, when a rainbow in the centre of the lake hit the fly hard, skittered along the surface until it had pulled the whole fly-line off the reel to the backing knot, jumped, and spat the hook. So, eight hours hard work for one fish netted. That’s fishing!          

Oliver Burch