My first time out on the famous Blagdon reservoir, the home of Stillwater fly fishing apparently. The reservoir itself is stunning, set in the Mendip hills with the lovely village of Blagdon overlooking it. It really is a picture and a real pleasure to fish. The day itself started brilliantly with James and I seemingly anchored up right over a shoal of Rainbow trout: we immediately started getting knocks whilst everyone else seemed to be struggling! By lunch time James had managed 5 compared to only 1 for myself! At that point James had to call it a day so we vacated our good spot and rowed back to the lodge to meet James’ Dad who was coming in the boat in his place.

The afternoon was slightly frustrating. Another boat had anchored in the spot we were in that morning and were catching quite regularly. We, on the other hand were struggling. What made it infinitely more frustrating was the master-class being demonstrated by group of bank anglers who were catching trout with almost robotic regularity whilst we looked on in amazement! In the end I managed to pick up two more trout but that was nothing compared to the numbers that were being caught from the bank. In the end we called it a day but before rowing back I plucked up the courage to ask the bank anglers what fly was doing the damage to which I heard just one word: Damsel! Typically the one fly I didn’t try, oh well, food for thought for next time.