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3 June 2022

 Another solo venture hopefully having learnt something from the last time

Decided to start with a floating line, 16ft leader with 2 droppers, leaded green nymph on point, bullet buzzer on middle and red diawl bach on the top.

Welsh fly fishing royalty in the form of 2 Welsh hawks also on the water - I assume practicing for a competition

Headed out in the general direction of Rainbow corner put the drogue out and started a drift through to A Buoy, not a sausage so decided to go back and start again from about K buoy - TOP TIP COMING UP

I had pulled the drogue in for the trip down to K decided I was in around about the right place and deployed the drogue - then rather foolishly decided to 'tweak' my positioning BUT DID NOT LOOK TO SEE WHERE THE DROGUE WAS!!!!!!!!

End result drogue ended up around the engine, shredded and of no further use!!! - expensive manouver

Not a disaster to start with as the wind was only 8-10 mph so ok'ish so could still drift

Started another drift from around Y buoy and decided that the flies were not getting deep enough due to the speed of the drift so decieded to change to a DI3 (with hindsight logic is fundamentally flawed as 2 weighted flies might well be getting too deep)

Took the opportunity to also change flies - Orange FAB on the point,normal buzzer middle and stuck with the diawl bach on the top.

Really slow (static with the drift) results in the first fish of the day to the FAB and also the loss of the 2nd fish of the day (FAB)

Wind now picked up but went back around the drift (Y-B) again but nothing this time

Keen to fish down at Toft so set out down there - pretty crowded, managed a drift of sorts but not great

Drifting too quick so decided to go and anchor somewhere in Biggin bay and have a bit of a rest

Got to Biggin Bay and a couple of boats anchored but plenty of space so got in the main bay and dropped anchor just inshore of E Bouy ( or at least I thought I did)

Obviously left the anchor a bit short as found out I was drifting towards P but managed another really nice fish so could have been worse (FAB really slow retrieve)

Back to Biggin Bay determined to anchor this time as the wind was getting up and drifting was very choppy and far too quick

Anchored by the Pipe and had a pleasant hour or so managed one fish (FAB really slow) and a couple of pulls whilst generally relaxing and having a nice time - am now beginning to see the attractions of anchoring even though it has been 'forced' on me by my incompetant use of the drogue

Raining and a bit miserable - want to give Toft another go as I quite like the look of it so head down in that direction, 1/2 dozen boats anchred so so sneak in 70 yards or so from the bank and drop anchor

1st cast another nice fish to the FAB

Now 4:30 and have 4 nice fish in the bag so (with a 2 hour drive home) decided to call it a day

Back at the Jetty, disemarked loaded car and filled out return by 17:00

Lessons Learnt

  • Watch Out for your Drogue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • An Orange FAB on a sinker should be my starting play to try and get fish in the boat - I need other methods but they are easier to find with fish in the boat rather than starting off with then
  • Fishing is much more fun with a boat partner but a half day would be the next closest, a full day by myself is too long, there were still 4 hours plus of fishing time when I left - will book a morning next time

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