An Afternoon Fly Fishing at Wentwood Reservoir in South Wales

I was faced with the dilemma on Saturday afternoon of wanting to go for a ride on my motor bike but also wanting to go fishing, so a combination of the two, a ride to Wentwood reservoir in Wales, fitted the bill. Wentwood is a forty acre reservoir nestled in the hills twenty miles from Newport, with depths ranging from ninety feet at the dam end and shallowing up to just three feet in some places. I opted for the £18 catch and release ticket, but there are other tickets available. On arrival four other anglers were fishing the shallower end of the reservoir, pulling lures. I also headed to the shallow water to try my luck. I set up a floating line and a fluorocarbon leader on a 9' 6'' #6 rod with a pair of size 12 pheasant tail nymphs, as I had spotted fish feeding in the surface layers. On only my second cast I was playing my first Wentwood trout, a fish of 2lb which put up a brilliant scrap. Fish were sipping flies off the surface now but to far out for me to cast to as the wind was blowing at me, so a waiting game of a fish every time the wind dropped was played out. I had two more fish by this method then decided to have walk along the bank changing my pheasant tails for damsel nymphs and this produced one more fish of around 2lb 8oz. Evening time had soon arrived and with the sun slowly disappearing I headed for home. For more information on this venue visit www.wentwoodflyfishing.com

Enjoying an afternoon fishing

View to the Bristol Channel

An Afternoon Session on the Paddock Lake, Acorn Fisheries, Kingston Seymour

Thursday afternoon greeted me with a sharp, cold northerly wind and fairly low air temperature. Mark Bartlett and I decided to fish the some of island swims on Acorn's Paddock lake as a friendly match/practice session.
I set up a KC Angling Carpa2 4x12 float to fish the deeper of the two shelves which can be found on the far bank of nearly all of the pegs on the Paddock Lake. I decided to fish with carp in mind so had a 0.15mm mainline and a 0.13mm hooklenth tied to a Drennan wide gape pellet size 16. I also set up a rig for fishing the upper, shallower shelf. For this I used the same line and hook set up but with a Matrix Series 3 0.3g.
We both set up and at 3pm we called 'all in'. Mark and I have both fished the Paddock many times and Mark, being the fishery owners son, knows the lake very, very well. I began fishing the deeper shelf using a Fox toss pot to deliver small amounts of damp micro pellet with every put in. I had a selection of hookbaits to choose from but opted for 6mm soft expander. Mark had also chosen a similar approach.
Mark had the much more productive first hour, netting a few small carp along with a few skimmers, all coming to the upper shelf on the far bank at 13m. I had struggled in the first hour and only managed a single carp and 3 skimmers. I changed tactic or else I faced handing Mark the sacred £1 which we always have as a wager.
I set to task on the upper shelf, still cupping in with every put in damp micro's and now a few Dynamite Baits 4mm soft feed amino natural pellets with each cup with the intention of trying to hold the carp if and when they turned up.
I began to get a few signs of life and after a few lifts of the rig I began to get solid bites. Over the next hour I caught 5 carp and a few meaty looking skimmers.
At 5pm we took a tea break, cupped in a bit of extra bait on our favoured lines and retired to the clubhouse in an effort to thaw out if we could!!
We headed back out, cup of tea in hand and set to it again. Our friend Rob Fogg had joined us by this point as we wanted to see how the lake was fishing.
I caught steadily for the next hour and half and Mark was trying to get the skimmers feeding in his swim.
At 7pm we called all out. Rob, manned the scales and we proceeded to weigh in. Mark had weighed 9lb 12oz of silvers, mainly comprising of 'hand sized' skimmers. He also weighed 13lb 8oz of carp.
I ended up weighing 13lb for my silvers which was made up of 1lb to 1.5lb skimmers and also managed 30lb 6oz for my carp. I had managed to win by 20lb, which given the conditions I was very pleased with and more importantly I had the bragging rights and the £1!!
Mark, Rob and I have all booked in the the Saturday CostCutter match being held on Acorn Paddock Lake with weekend so no doubt Mark will have a chance to win his £1 back!