Clatworthy Lake

Summer was making an attempt on Wednesday morning as Andrew and I wandered our way across the levels and up towards Exmoor.  Our fishing trip was to Clatworthy, a beautiful setting with the dam over flowing and the water high up the banks. On arrival we saw a pair of Crested Grebe but no chicks with them, I suppose most of the water fowl have suffered from the high water levels flooding their nests this year.

As my fishing buddy had a gammy leg we hired a boat, and after loading him and the tackle we set of for the northern arm which is usually shallow and usually held fish, which feed on the abundance of aquatic life there.

Andrew was into his first fish quickly and bought onboard a fish with lovely markings and a full tail fin.  I caught next on an Orange blob which was taken savagely, this was the third strike I had in an hour but the two others I had lost playing them in.  I had allowed the line to go slack and the barbless hook had been thrown.  This third fish fought well, and pulled enough for me to worry about the quality of my knots. When Andrew finally netted the fish we could see it was not a monster as assumed from the fight, but still a very respectable 3lb.  Later that morning Andrew hooked into a wonderful fish that took his line off nearly to the backing and again  it took a good while to play out until I could slip the net under. (after accidentally hitting the fish on the head first! Thank goodness he didn't get off the hook, I would have never heard the last of it.

Sorry about the quality, rain water in my phone.

We also had a top class fishing guide with us, who only needed the odd bit of bread to keep her happy.

As you can see phone had dried out by this stage.

The afternoon was difficult and we only added one other fish to our day.  But between us we caught seven wonderful rainbow trout, each one fought magnificently.  We will be going back to Clatworthy.

Flies which caught: Orange Blob, Black and Green Nymph.