With the Met team we were again at Bewl for the 25th annual PSUK national event. I practiced on tuesday and Wednesday with Mark Stewart and the fishing was to say the least hard. The weather of the past week , hot and sunny and an occasional rain storm had resulted in a large algal bloom and areas of the lake looked like a lawn. Fishing here was difficult to say the least. Thankfully other areas had cleared so it was a case of running around till you found a fishable spot and then sticking there.
On day one I couldn't buy a take so spent the day tidying up my fly lines and trying a few off the wall ideas. We determined the fish were well scattered and that there was a good concentration between the cages and Bramble bay but apart form a pull or two and a few (very few) follows nothing came to the boat. On returning ashore the other teams began the usual game of Bullsh** and didn't believe we had caught nothing.
Day two was if anything more difficult for me depite me taking a couple of fish early on on oprange blobs on the DI3, after this early success I fished a nymph set up for most of the day and had next to no fish. This despite other teams doing well on similar tactics. Mark on the other hand got it sorted later on and took 5 fish and missed many more. It became apparent that a lot of fish were "falling off" after apparently being well hooked.
This always provokes the soft mouth discussion. I feel the fish are just not taking properly and the hook holds are in the tiniest bit of lip skin and hence pull out after a short fight.
Anyway we retired to the pub for dinner, incidentally if you are ever in Pembury in Kent I can heartilly recommend the Black Horse as a pub and restaurant. Great beer Great food and good atmosphere. We tipped heavily and the waitress tried to give it back! In the pub we decided on a team method, DI3 or DI5 lines, Two Boobies and two nymphs fished washing line style with a varied retrieve. The fall back method was the intermedate and nymphs. Full of expectation we retired to the bar.
