Having a spare afternoon and a distinct lack of smoked fish in the freezer, I decided to have an afternoon at Ladybower. After putting lots of work on my own little pond for the past few days I didn't feel like a long walk around the banks so I opted to fish from the pontoon outside the fishery office.The weather was nice and warm with a small breeze creating a perfect little ripple on the water - ideal conditions for the dry fly. I tied on a small black gnat and methodically worked the water round the pontoon. I saw a small rise in towards the bank and covered it quickly, almost as soon as the little black fly hit the water a fish rose and took it. After a short scrap a small (slightly scraggy) rainbow of just over a pound was in the game bag.
I had a lovely afternoon fishing the dry fly and reached my limit of 4 fish in about 4 hours. The bag included 2 rainbows and 2 brown trout, one of the browns was particularly nice weighing in at around 2 pounds. All the fish will be filleted and hot smoked as usual!
Ladybower seems to be starting to fish well and I was surprised to catch 2 brown trout as I wouldn't normally expect to see them until later in the season.
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Give us a fillet once they're smoked - and give us me keys back - and lend me your mic.
Decided to give Ladybower a blast this weekend, having not cast a fly myself for well over a year and teach my father how to cast a fly.
He flatley refused to learn to cast on a field so i set him up with a small brook rod, floating line and a gareish orange dog nobbler on a 9ft leader. I adopted the same setup on a resevoir rod. We got dispensation to fish by the pontoons as I thought it would enable my father to get into relativly deep water with his appauling casting.
1st cast I hit into a Rainbow, with no fight in it and assumed it would be around a pound. On landing it, it turned out to be 2lb but should have been closer to 4lb for its size, it was scraggy had a sunken belly and hooked jaw. My heart sank as I hoped this wasnt a sign of the fish in Ladybower.
An hour or so later i hit into something very sizeable that provided one hell of a fight on my light leader. A fully finned 3lb rainbow fat and in immaculate condition. This was followed by a wonderful brown of 1 1/2lb (my favourit fish of the day).
We then had a lul of a couple of hours during the afternoon and although fish were rising everywhere no matter what fly i tried nothing helped.
By now the frustration of my father was evident , he could cast barely 10 foot infront of himself and even when he managed this the line slammed down with an awfull splash into a tangled ball.
The warden came down to see how we were doing finally about 4pm and in return for me helping him to pull a pontoone in, to the left of the boat launching pontoon he took pity on my father and allowed us access to the disabled pontoon(?).
By now I had reached my bag limit with a perfectly condidtioned blue rainbow and was willing a fish onto my fathers line. At last he hit a small rainbow only to have it jump free at the net. Next cast he hit into something very big.. on the surface id have to put the rainbow at nearly 4lb (I didnt even know grown on fish like this existed in ladybower) anyhow it wasnt to be, he rammed his landing net straight into his leader smashing this monster off. Finally he hit a small rainbow of 1lb finishing the days fishing perfectly.
The fishing at ladybower seemed a lot harder than i rembered last time i fished it, bagging up in an hour with stockies of 3/4lb, but it proved a superb starter water with even a complete novice taking a fish using the worst technique I have ever seen. (although this wouldnt have been possible had we not been given access to the pontoon).
The only thing I have to question is, with noone around us, it would have been nice if we were allowed to fish from the disabled platform sooner at least this would have kept my fatherers wayward flys out of the harm of any passers by!!
Hi,
Glad to here you enjoyed your day. You can normally fish of the disabled pontoon all day as long as you are not obstructing anyone who needs to use it. Just ask in the fishery office first...
Your right about the fish, there are a few scraggy ones but some good ones in this year too...
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