Best Chew Opening Day for years!

Warm weather, light winds and buzzers hatching in profusion made us all hope that Chew Valley Lake's opening day would be one to remember.
We were not disappointed!

All over the country, this unusual spell of mild weather will mean that Spring has arrived very early and the chironomids will become active and hatch throughout the day.
Forget the usual attack of Black, Orange and White Lures using sinking lines, but instead make a switch to teams of Buzzers and Nymphs on Floating Lines and long leaders.

Last week at Blagdon, Simon Pledge and I had a sensational Opening Day using Nymphs with Floating Lines and today, we repeated the success on Chew.  Most of the rainbows we caught were bright silver and fin perfect - all of which were over 2lbs in weight.  Normally the early season trout are a bit lethargic, but these trout fought like the proverbial clappers!

I spooned all of our fish and they were all stuffed with buzzer, green bloodworm and daphnia.  We returned 3 cock rainbows and 4 fish that had been hit by cormorants - none were marked by pike.
North Shore and the 2 Picnic Areas were the main hotspots from the boats.  Woodford Bank, Herons Green and North Shore were the best bank areas.  Wick fished reasonably well from both boat and bank, while Moreton and Stratford also produced plenty of fish for the boats.

If you are fishing other ressies across the country in the next few days, be prepared to fish more immitative patterns rather than lures and expect the best action during the warmest times of the day - 12 noon to 4pm.

I am out again tomorrow and for the next 4 days, so I will report back with the best areas and the killing patterns.