Despite 2020 being such a disastrous year due to Covid 19, once our lakes and rivers reopened following lockdown, the fishing all over the country has been nothing short of sensational!
This applies big time to Chew Valley and Blagdon Lakes, where the trout fly fishing has been sensational. Countless big rainbows and browns being caught before and after the resumption of fishing, with Blagdon being open for business 7 days a week.
Sadly Chew has been open intermittently due to staffing shortages at Bristol Water, but when it is open, boat sales hit the roof!
In fact, some trout fisheries have recorded record bookings from June through to the current time.
Rod Licence sales are up by over 500,000 on last year and fishing tackle companies have made record sales.
Guided Days
My guided days have sadly been reduced to single rod bookings due to social distancing in the boats. In fact, I did not guide at all for over the first 3 months of the pandemic as my wife is high risk. Once the lakes reopened, it became clear that John Harris and the staff at Bristol Water were employing strict safety guidelines and to be honest, once out on the water in a boat, things could not be much safer!
We have had some great days on both lakes, with fin perfect trout falling mainly to floating lines and either Dry Fly or Washing Line tactics.
I did not target the pike as much as usual as Chew was closed for a big part of the season, but when I did we boated fish up to 25lbs 12ozs.
River Guiding
Recently I guided Barry Hawyes on the fabled River Test at Leckford - Beat 12 for his surprise 70th Birthday treat. What a fabulous day! Barry has fished rivers in New Zealand and caught many specimen browns and rainbows, but he was obviously blown away with the history and beauty of our own premier chalkstream.
Pike Trials
The pike trials on Both Chew and Blagdon have produced huge numbers of smaller pike so far this season, but even so, at least 6 pike over 30lbs have been landed on Chew, and one of these fell to Chris the Ranger on a fly!
If you fancy a guided day on Chew or Blagdon in the coming weeks, please contact me via the Contact Form on the WebSite, or pm me on Facebook.
