Size is important.

The weather for Lechlade could have been worse, if hurricanes had been involved, we arrived in the gloom of a wet and windy morning, but with our hopes high. Our reasoning the way up had ran upon lines of, There must be somewhere to cast from with the wind behind you, and rather selfishly at least the weather will keep the less hardy at home ( for 'less hardy' read those not insane with fishing fever)

After payment of a not insubstantial amount of money we headed down to the pool, finding three all ready fishing! Not knowing the lake at all we just pitched for a likely looking place and cast out. By lunch time we had one fish apiece, both of which we some for and a half pounds but had fought disappointingly.

After a chat with local knowledge we swapped banks and tried the full range of depths and flies at our disposal. This is where fishing becomes a mental game you have to play with yourself, I missed takes through lack of attention, instead I was casting and retrieving on auto-pilot a bad habit for if you are not expecting bites you will miss them.

I had moved up to the top end of the lake when Andrew came to gloat; his bass bag now contained three, four and a half pound trout to my one, we pretend we are not competitive but when ever you get two blokes fishing together there is always competition. Andrew moved back down the windward side of the lake to a nice pool and promptly on the second cast caught another fish. So I have to give credit where credits due: he did find the place where all the big fish had congregated.  I wasted no time in getting down there and taking his place as he had reached his limit.

I caught two more four to five pound fish both of which fought well, indeed it was a surprise that the second fish was not a monster. A good fighting fish is what it is all about.

Casting for my fourth and final fish, I threw out a long line with 18 feet of leader with an orange goldhead on point, allowing it to sink for 10 seconds I started a fast retrieve to feel it go solid after a couple of pulls. By this time a fishing bore had joined us to give us the benefit of is considerable knowledge on how to land a fish, after playing the fish close enough for me to see it was big, he instructed me to play it on the real and use the drag. Nothing makes me more stubborn than unwanted advice, so a cheerfully played the fish in on the line. After twenty minutes and a few heart stopping moments when the fish ran, finally Andrew slipped the net under and my 11.5lb fish was in. A great place and yes I did gloat mightily.