Boilie or Fly?

The mornings are getting a tad chilly now so in theory the Carp should have their heads down bulking up ready for the winter cold spell, but no, they don't play by the rules. After a lousy day sat behind bite alarms at Ryton, spending the whole day willing one of the alarms to sound or at least the line to twitch, the session turned into a blank. we felt we had to change to fly fishing for them. The boilies will have to wait a few more weeks.

Sunday morning we went to Jubilee for a couple of hours of fly fishing, a match was being held on the horseshoe pool so we settled on the Island pool at set about feeding a few swims to bring the fish up in the water. I had a couple of fish show including one fish with a head like a horse, when this fish started picking off the biscuits I thought I was going to connect with a new PB as this fish was huge, there was no slurping the biscuits down like the usual suspects, this thing just opened it's mouth and engulfed them, if the biscuits were the size of a satsuma it would have swallowed them, no problem. I had two refusals off this fish which really got my heart pounding, I'm sure Barry could have heard it the other side of the lake. Barry managed one Carp but it was tough going, all I could manage was a nice Roach.
 

A nice Roach to the fly.

We returned in the afternoon/evening and I was hoping to have another go for the horse but someone was in that swim, one for next time me thinks. Horseshoe pool it was and it wasn't long before we had several fish up on top feeding away but they were being so cautious, I lost count how many flies I changed before I connected with a half descent fish that gave me a 'stripped back to the backing' scrap, this fish had loads of energy but I didn't think it was that big when I saw it rise for the fly. On the matt, I could see that it was one of the usual suspects, one I've had before with the kink in it's back but it looks like it's put on a bit of weight.

 

Wonky Donkey!

I completely missed the second bite of the evening, I was too busy taking a picture of the sunset in front of my swim and felt the line pull through my fingers, I dropped the camera into it's bag and pulled up the line and lifted into the fish, it wasn't big but it still pulled the string hard.

The Sunset!
 



The Fish!

Barry had a fair bit of action with plenty of takes and several lost fish but he did get his net wet.

Barry applies some pressure.