While waiting for the Welsh Dee to recover from last week’s major flood, I treated my son, George, to a fly fishing trip to Stocks Reservoir in search of rod-bending rainbow trout action. I also need to get some distance casting practice in before next week’s trip to Cuba.
Last week’s torrential rain had badly affected the fishing at Stocks Reservoir, with the heavy run-off had coloured up the reservoir.
However, Ben explained that after the last few days of dry weather the water had started to clear and the trout fishing was improving.
During the last couple of days, there had been some good catches of rainbow trout from Hollins Bay to the Jetty.
Fly fishing tactics for our day at Stocks Reservoir
With Ben’s advice in hand, we went back to the car to get ready.
George chose to start with a three fly set-up on a floating line and copolymer leader (point: size 10, black fritz; middle dropper: size 10, green ribbed black diawl bach; top dropper: size 12, black hopper). Then, with the impatience of youth, he hurried off to fish, leaving me to sort out the car etc.
I decided to commence with a slightly different approach of a floating line tipped with a 7ft intermediate polyleader connected to 12ft of 10lb fluorocarbon with two droppers spaced 3 & 8 ft from the point (point: size 10, black booby; middle dropper: size 10, green ribbed black Diawl Bach; top dropper: size 10, red ribbed black Diawl Bach).
In addition, I took my 10ft, 7wt rod loaded with a sink-tip line with me down to the reservoir as a reserve, just in case the fish were feeding deeper.
Fly fishing from Two Trees to Barn Quarry
When I reached the reservoir, there were already a few anglers fishing the bank from Hollins Bay to the Jetty. George had started fishing between the Two Trees and Barn Quarry. After his first few cast, he’d caught a rainbow trout (ca. 1.5lb) on the black fritz, which was a positive sign.
I started fishing at Two Trees and fished my way slowly to where George was fishing. For the first 20 minutes, I didn’t get any interest and was about to change the fly when the line tightened and..
BANG…
I was into my first fish of the day a lovely Stocks Reservoir rainbow trout of about 1.5lbs, which had taken the black booby point fly.
I managed to get a short GoPro video of catching this lovely rainbow trout.
We both thoroughly fished the area into Barn Quarry but didn’t have any further takes.
The wind had started to swirl in this area and was making casting and controlling the retrieve difficult. Therefore, we walk around Stocks Reservoir to fish Newclose Bay and Eaking Shallows, which were sheltered from the worst of the wind.
Fly Fishing from Heron’s Hurdle to Eaking Shallows
George stopped off to fish Heron’s Hurdle; while I started fishing northwards from Newclose Bay to Eaking Shallows.
Out of the wind, it was much easier to control the speed of retrieve; however, I wasn’t picking up any takes. Therefore, I change the point fly from the black booby to a size 10, green pea and continued fishing towards Eaking Shallows.
Finally, in the last small bay, the line tightened close to a bush and a better trout…
stripped line from the reel..
Eventually, I got it under control and guided a lovely rainbow trout (3lbs) to the net, which had fallen for the green pea.
I had not heard any shouts of joy from George while he’d fished Newclose Bay. So I assumed he hadn’t had luck.
I could see that he’d moved around the reservoir to fish the area between Heron’s Hurdle and Beetles Drop. Therefore, I decided to walk round to see if his luck had changed.
Fly Fishing from Heron’s Hurdle to Bell Point
Frustratingly, George had seen a couple of fish swirl near the surface there but his flies hadn’t produced any interest.
I suggested that we move on to fish the last couple of bays at Beetles Drop because there was a wind-lane showing at a castable distance from the bank.
After making a couple of casts into the wind-lane I had a…
solid take.
The rod bend round into my third rainbow of the day, which had been tempted by the green pea.
After safely releasing the fish, we fished on but neither of us had any more takes.
For the last hour of our day, we fished Grange Point and Bell point but didn’t get any takes there either and called it a day.
Back at the lodge the consensus was that the fishing had been tough for most anglers. Therefore, our 4 rainbow trout tally from the bank was a respectable catch return.More importantly, we both had thoroughly enjoyed the day fishing at Stocks Reservoir.
Early in May, we plan to have another fly fishing trip to Stock Reservoir, when hopefully, the weather and fishing with have warmed up considerably.
Tight line until next time, Andrew