I visited England with two friends Paul and Ondra for 5 days fishing trip in the beginning of May. Lukáš, the last member of our group, got a horrible flu and could not moved, so he had to stay at home. We flew to London Luton by WizzAir on 9th May, we left  Prague at 6 o’clock and at  7 we were in England. As we had problem to find easy-rent company and there was a traffic jam in M1 and my navigator had not such a great day, we reached our accommodation at Great Easton B&B relatively late.

[Show as slideshow]

But we were sitting in boats on the Eyebrook Reservoir at about lunch time. I have already visited this lake at least for 15 times, fishing is always good there, they have friendly staff and good shop.  Lake has in my opinion ideal size and location and it is always full of fish.  It was rainy but buzzers were hatching and fish were active, so fishing was good, I was fishing washing line and team of 3 smaller black buzzers and booby on the point and I covered rising fish or simply cast to the bank and fig.8. When I got soaked I made break for coffee and small talk in the lodge, owner of the fishery Andy told me, that lake (similarly like other lakes in England) was low after long drought and it was filled up during last week, so it was full of fresh water rich in nutrients. Finally we got altogether over 20 fish, so it was good start. In the evening we went for two beers and 1 Cola the local pub in Great Easton (Paul don’t drink alcohol – he is veg and don’t drinks, poor Paul, he has nothing funny in his life ).

After perfect full English breakfast (Paul had full English veg-breakfast  we went to Elinor fishery which was recommended to me by Mick O´Farell.  I changed navigator, but it was again nothing special, 15 miles long journey took 1,5 hours. This 25 acres lake welcomed us by strong western wind and owner recommended to us bank fishing. But it was wasting time as fish were rising out of casting distance and we rent the boat for the afternoon. We were three in boat, it was good idea, Paul is left handed, so it was no problem for casting and more  flies in water brought more fish, we caught over 30 fish. The best method was fishing light flies just under surface, best pattern were claret and black hoopers and different smaller DB. I got also some fish on nymphs in the deep and one on tequila blob. During the way home we stopped for dinner and a few beers in Pizza restaurant at the intersection close to Eyebrook, Paul ordered veg-pizza with paprika sausage.

[Show as slideshow]

On Friday we went to Draycote Reservoir, Craig Baar had nice new shop and it was visible, that he works on the improving of fishing facilities. Wind was stronger and changed its direction to NW, so there were 1 m high waves at the dam. In the jetty was everything supervised by nesting coot.  The best method was again to anchor in a sheltered place close to bank and fish nymphs on midge tip line, very good was buzzer with red-holo rib and cheeks which we got from Craig. Relatively hard day I finished with 6 fish and few missed takes and one snapped bigger fish, my friends had similar result. We got few nice silver overwintered fish. After we came to Great Easton, we again visited pub to support the local business, I liked the local bitter beer, but Paul ordered another Cola.

[Show as slideshow]

On Saturday we were fishing Pitsford Reservoir , after 2 hours of drifting without any take we anchored in a bay close a small group of boats and we caught 7 fish in 15 minutes including decent pike, all on midge tips and damsel nymphs. Next another boat anchored in front of us and disturbed fish, they left after short exchange of views but damsels did not worked more. Fish were back after 30 minutes, but they took only buzzers and DB, it was necessary to fish as slow as possible and close to bottom, the best was to comb weed by the point heavy buzzer and fish took DB on the dropper. We were again three in the boat and it was great fun, we caught more than 30 fish. But it was one boat in front of us which got twice more fish and in my opinion the reason is that our boat with three people moved in the wind from side to side and therefore we were not able to keep our nymphs static. After great fishing we visited Fish-bar in Brixworth and bought “Fish and chips” and ate it at the  bench in front of the bar like homeless. After we arrived to Great Easton we went directly to pub and ordered three beers. “No more Cola? ” asked the waitress :-) .

[Show as slideshow]

We finished our trip again in Eyebrook, I was in boat with my friend John Emerson. Clarity of water decreased to the half comparing to Wednesday because of water bloom, it was sunny and very windy, so nothing special for fishing. Fish were not active, I got  4 fish on TL Buzzer and the huge pike, John put Cat-lure to the point and got 6 fish on it and smaller pike, he told me, that fish did not feed, so it was necessary to try something to provoke them. If you would like to find a good guide for fishing in lakes or rivers in UK ask John, he is very experienced angler.

[Show as slideshow]

We had to leave Eyebrook at 3 p.m., pack our things in the BB (it was absolutely perfect accommodation in low price located 5 minutes from Eyebrook, we felt there like at home, Eleine and David Hankey were great hosts) and directed to the London Luton and we landed in Prague exactly in the midnight.

During early spring I usually prefer fishing in lakes as water in rivers is usually high and cold and fish are not active. I always begin trout season at Květoňov lake.
I prepared everything in the evening including leader, but weather forecast was nothing special. I was waked up by heavy rain 5 minutes before alarm clock and I have to say, that If I had not went with David, I would have stayed at home, temperature was about 6°C. But at five we left Česke Budějovice and at half past five we had short breakfast at petrol station in Kaplice, the town close to lake. We reached the lake quarter to six and found free places at our favourite bank, temperature dropped to 3 °C and rain was replaced by snow showers. We greeted our friends which we always meet at the same place in the opening day and my flies fell  to water exactly at six. I used fast glass line and three lures (black, yellow and orange blob) and had three fish in first four casts, simply good start. My friends joined me and we all caught about 20 fish during three hours, later I replaced fast glass by the slow one and I made longer leader and used lighter flies and it also worked well. Opposite bank was not so good and fishermen in boats were also not so successful, but everybody catch some good fish as we stocked fish up to 3 kilos. I caught few fish about one kilo and finally I invited two of them to dinner to my home :-).

At seven we saw one fisherman in boat fighting with big fish and the fish was finally 111 cm long pike, which was caught by 7 cm long black woolly bugger and 0,18 nylon, there were caught another two pikes over 90 cm and few smaller this day. There is a rule in the Czech low, that  no pike can be released in trout fishery, but I thing that in the trout lake full of stocked rainbows could pike improve  fishing, as this lake is flyfishing only and everybody would like to catch a big fish. We stock to this 6 ha reservoir about 25 00 kg of fish every year, so pikes had enough food and they grow very quickly, more over I thing, that they prefer injured or dead fish, so they utilise touts which are for fisherman valueless. Majority of pikes is every year caught by small lures which is for me surprising, as they usually have trout in stomach, the probably like desserts  Or they are irritated by big amount of trout in lake and they attack everything what moves.

[Show as slideshow]

I was a little dreaming at the computer on Friday after lunch and watching nice sunny day behind windows and at 14:30 called me my friend Tobi, that “he is at a pond close to České Budějovice, ice is away and rainbows stocked for ice-fishing in January are hungry”.

14:31  - I left my office followed by smiles of my colleagues and I was running to the car

14:40-14:50 – by the way home I jumped the lights twice

14:50-14:55 – packing was quick, I found new big lake fly-fishing bag under Christmas three and everything was already inside, I only had to find appropriate rod, I chose Sage Z-axis size 5

15:05 – I´m in the shop, the shop assistant was surprised, that I would like to buy fishing permit in March, she could not find it and it took 15 very precious minutes

15:30 – I´m parking at the pond, Tobi is just playing fish and another friend Pusťa is already there, Tobi is fishing hover-line, he has already caught 12 fish and missed appropriately the same number, Pusťa has been there for 10 minutes, uses fast glass line and has had no take. I´m making leader and competition can start, I use floating line and team of two black tadpoles with one white in the middle of the cast.

Tobi opens the score immediately and Pusťa misses few takes, but he is finally catching fish, Tobi adds second fish and I have firstly very shy pull and next comes first solid take this year and it is real orgasms, fish is on the hook. Second fish is nice pike and with another trout I´m levelling the score to 3:3:3. ….

Final score was 9:7:7  for Tobi, he had to leave at 16:30 as he had to go to swimming pool with kids. We continued fishing till the sunset,  in total I caught 10 rainbows (size was 30-37 cm) and two pikes, Pusťa had similar result without pikes. Tobi had altogether over 20 rainbows and also one brook trout.

The high point of the great afternoon was one of the rainbows baked on the bacon and cold Pilsner beer at TV and victory of our ice-hockey team in quarter-final of play-off.

[Show as slideshow]