Salt water fly fishing at Arnside in Cumbria
I went to the Lake District at the weekend to celebrate my dad’s birthday with the family. While there I went fishing at Arnside with my brother.
At Arnside, there is a low water estuary lagoon, by the railway viaduct, where you can catch flounders and during July and August a the occasional bass and sea trout.
With some luck, it is possible to catch the sea trout on the fly, while they wait for the next tide. Using a sinking line and a size 8 Teal Blue & Silver I fished the pool.
After about 30 minutes my line when tight and I bent the rod into something solid…
Eventually, I got the fish off the bottom and I was surprised to see a flounder on a sea trout fly …
The first I have ever caught on the fly ☺
I continued fishing through the lagoon with the fly and hooked another flounder which I lost trying to get it onto the sand.
When the tide came in my brother had a couple of bass attack his surface lure but hook them.
Salmon fly fishing at Bangor-On-Dee
The high tides this week were felt all the way upriver to Farndon and would have given any salmon or sea trout a free ride over Chester weir.
Thursday was my first outing on the Dee and because of the high tides, I decided to try my luck at Bangor-on-Dee, to see if I could intercept any salmon coming in off the tide.
I fished from Fletchers Run on the Sutton Green beat down to Eel Cottage on the Captains Beat. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any interest on the fly or see any fish moving through on what were ideal conditions.
Other anglers have been reporting similar results on the salmon front. Therefore, I suspect there are not many grilse entering the system at the moment. It would be great to hear of anyone having better results.
For the evening, I drove up to Llangollen and fished the left bank above Horseshoe Fall until midnight.
Fly fishing at Llangollen
It was a beautiful evening and at the top of the glide below Duncans Pool there were a few grayling rising and I saw a couple of small sea trout jump close to the trees on the near bank.
While the sun was setting, I fished down through the glide with a team of wet flies (point: size 14, March Brown Spider; middle dropper: size 14, Black Hopper; top dropper: size 12, Silver Sedge).
In the crease between the deep channel and the far side of the rock platform, I caught a couple of grayling on the Black Hopper. Then about halfway down the pool, a fish swirled at the flies and my rod bent into a good fish…
It took off downriver, taking me down to the backing.
Eventually, I guided it into the slack water but I lost the fish when my line got stuck in weed…
It was either a brown trout or a stale sea trout in the 2lbs+ bracket.
Fishing the remainder of the pool produced a couple of small brown trout and grayling.
It was now quite dark so I walked upriver to Duncans Pool and switched over to a sea trout fly set-up (point: size 12D, Stoats Tail; dropper: size 12 Teal Blue & Silver; on 8lb copolymer).
I started fishing the fast run above the main pool and worked my way thoroughly down to the tail. I had one take, which turned out to be a greedy grayling that took the top dropper.
While making my way down I heard one sea trout jump close to the far bank. Therefore, I went through the pool again with a surface lure but this didn’t raise any interest.
At midnight mist descended on the river and I called it a night.
A number of local anglers have reported catching a few sea trout this week but overall the sea trout fishing at Llangollen has been very poor year-to-date. There have been reports of significant numbers of sea trout down at Bangor on Dee but I haven’t seen any on my visits there; so can’t help anyone on that front.
Next week’s plan is to go fishing on Thursday and Saturday. So hopefully, I will have more to report.
Tight line until next week, Andrew
PS. Would like to contribute to these weekly fishing updates…
If so, please send me a quick note to andrewoverend1@gmail.com with any photos by Sunday of each week and if appropriate I will add it to the weekly review.