Chew Valley opens in style.

Beautiful weather, gin-clear water and plenty of feeding trout made the first few days of the season truly memorable on Chew Valley Lake.
For the second year in a row, the sun shone all day and the wind never rose above a light breeze, helping the trout to feed hard on daphnia, bloodworm, buzzer and corixa.

Most boat anglers fished floating lines and nymphs, although some used sinking lines in the deeper water with lures and boobies to tempt the daphnia feeders.

The boat anglers certainly had the best of the sport as the bright skies kept the fish feeding in the deeper water.  East Shore, the Spit off Denny Island and Herons Green were the best boat fishing areas, while Wick Green produced plenty of limit bags from the bank.

The pike have proved more elusive however and this is probably to do with the bright skies and crystal clear water.  I have had a few jacks to the boat and have seen several decent fish follow the fly, but turn away at the last moment.

Today the lake was flat calm for several hours and in this time, I witnessed dozens of trout rising to buzzers.  Oh how I wished I had a trout rod with me today!

Still, out again tomorrow and the rest of this week, so plenty of opportunities to take a few fish "off the top"!