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Haywards Farm Again

 Having had a pleasant morning at Haywards farm a couple of weeks ago and being unable to spare the time toget to one of the midlands reservoirs I decided to have another couple of hours today in the hope of gaining a bit more confidence in a couple of different methods.

Quick chat in the shop revealed it was mainly buzzers on a floater that was catching so set up the Onki with floater and 2 buzzers and the stillmaniac with a slo mo and apps worm

Went back to the corner that produced success last time and started with the slo mo, timeing of the casting was slightly out to start with so ended up in a few tangles which was somewhat frustrating but did eventually manage to sort that out.

Managed to catch the tree behind which started off being slightly annoying but did result in me finding the Oki Dokie I lost last week so a result in the end.

After 1/2 an hour precisely no interest in the apps worm so swapped rods to the buzzers, some fish moving near the top of the water but not remotely interested in my buzzers so changed the point fly to a small Kate McClaren muddler to hold the dropper up a bit, still nothing after 1/2 an hour so back to the slo mo and a booby snake

Another 1/2 an hour and still precisely no interest so decided it was time to move, I have been fishing with the wind at my back so now  moved around the lake so I woul be fishing into the wind

Casting much more difficult but fish regularly moving no further than 10ft out so just need to work out what flies to use, at least there is a nice ripple here not the flat calm there is on the other shore.

Changed the floater to a single 'Fiery Father Jack' which should fish reasonably high in the water and also chanegd the slo mo to a 6ft slow tip with a size 12 McPhail buzzer

Another 1/2 an hour switching between the 2 whilst being surrounded by fish that were not interested - very frustrating

Went for a walk along the bank and got similar stories there, plenty of fish but no interest, one guy had been down to size 16 dry's and still no interest.

Right, time to try and provoke them into a take, large orange muddler on the floater and varying retreives on the surface through the rising fish - result = nothing!!

Large daddy left out for them to discover = nothing

Claret size 12 bobs bits  = nothing

Orange UV Straggler = nothing

Wind getting up and somewhat uncomfortable to cast so decided to have one more try with the slow tip, stuck a red cheeked diawl bach on and finally got my frst take of the day, didn't stick but at least it was something!!

Fished on with the slow tip and diawl for another 20 minutes, still fish showing all around but no further interest so decided to call it a day at around 14:00.

So a somewhat frustrating day which I still found immensly enjoyable, the early finish I guess shows the pluses and minuses of going to a fishery that is close to home, if it was a 4 hour round trip would I really have called it a day after 4 hours - probably not but the fact that I could have a pleasant 4 hours and then get home within 30 or so minutes is also fantastic

Next trip will probably be to one of the midlands reservoirs hopefully over easter. 

The other good news is that despite the lack of D rings and internal pockets I am quite impressed with the new jacket in terms of wamth and useability of the bellows pockets and the handwarmer pockets


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