15/03/08 - Walthamstow Opening Day

After 6 weeks without wetting a line, Walthamstow #4 & #5 were back open for business.

Been tying flies and am half way though a 7 piece 9'6" #7 Cabelas Stowaway rod - bargain at $50.

Bought this for taking on holidays and on the tube, it should fit nicely in my back pack. Also bought some great looking rings, all in blue from mudhole.com (the rings came with a few other bits to £25 and got done by Customs, the Feckers, and cost me another £14!). Think I will save these till I have the £150 for the Harrisons Lorhic blank. Unbeliveably, I found it impossible to purchase a rod bag for the 7 piecec, and have had to have one custom made from a Lady in the States - works out cheap though - $15 delivered.

Back to Waltahmstow, paid the £300 for the 75 fish season ticket and made my way to the water around midday. The wind was mild for this time of year, coming from the East, and it was pretty overcast and later in the afternoon it turned to mild steady rain. There were quite a few fishing fom the causeway in to #4 and a few fishing the houses bank on #5.

The resevoir had been stocked on the Monday 10/03/08, and this conincided with very bad storms, that I thought was a little worrying.

I made my way around to the SE corner of #4 where the wind was blowing from. From the reports on the bank, the odd fish had been caught here and there.

Set up 3 flies on a floater and fished for around an hour without seeing or getting a pull. Also set up a Di5 with Boobies and still couldn't touh a fish. then I noticed behind me a few fish breaking the surface in the corner of #5. Moved over and wind was now coming over from my left shoulder. Covered a few fish and even tryed a CDC dry for a while and couldn't entice a pull.

I then switched tactics and threw a white booby out with a coral blob on a dropper. At the end of the first retrieve I lifted the rod early to avoid the twigs and sticks that had been blown in to the bank, I could not see my dropper yet, when the line started moving to my left. I quickly raised the rod and could feel added weight to it, and then saw a massive silver slab. I quickly hoisted my rod and moved up the bank, but bollocks the fish did not hook, and my white booby popped out the water!

I had several more takes on the booby, and tryed sharpening the hook, and just couldn't turn a pull in to a solid fish.

There was some more surface movements and could see that there were some fish shoaling around. The fish seemed very nervous and this was probably caused by the cormorants having a bonnaza. I also saw at least 6 dead stockies in the corner of #5 that near to where I was fishing. I wonder how many more fatalities there were in the rest of the water??!!

I noticed a fish about 2 foot out, and picked up my floater and cast a buzzer a few feet in front of it, the fish shot forward and grabbed it. That was my only fish of the day, and it was a good size stocky, nearly topping 3lb. That was it for the day.

Am hoping the new fish will settle down soon, and that the previous stock will start to show. It's a shame to see all the newly stocked fish go to waste due to poor stocking / conditions. Feels like your getting robbed a bit, stumping up money and seeing what should be providing you with the chances of better sport, wasted in the shallows, along with all the cormorants.

Gonna try and get an afternoon in this week and try out my newly completed rod.

Ordered a Chinky when I got home and Mel told Woody we had a nice trout for him and he gave us a free box of starters to the order and we were still eating them Sunday afternoon, nice little bonus!

Farmoor on Easter Monday, hopefully to get some confidence back!