After having a great first start by fishing New Year’s Day for rainbow trout and then later fishing out in the Baltic Sea via Rostock, Germany, I’ve come for more fishing in England! Despite the limited success in Germany fishing for sea-run brown trout, it was time to go after something more freshwater since I think the ocean fishing can be hit or miss during the winter time. I really think that the season for trout was going to be a good one considering that in England, some of the bodies of water have a closed season on some of the fish species out there.
There’s me casting off the bank into a large pond filled with fish and more water. I was hoping that a big fish would take my fly/hook.
So when the fishing seasons are usually back open in February, a lot of the fish have probably not been eating that much during the winter when there is a lack of bugs and the fingerling fish becoming smarter in escaping all those the predator fish from being fed on. In addition to those factors, some bodies of water also begin to stock more fish which further decreases the dwindling food supply for all the fish and increase the overall competition. Combine that with a closed fishing season where people are not taking fish out (to decrease the demand) and the fish have not seen a fly or hooked bait in awhile, the fishing becomes easier than just a catching a few rainbow trout like I did on New Year’s Day will make almost anyone feel like being a fishing god. Well, maybe. Being there at the right time, right place is always important because having the perfect cast but no fish around doesn’t really help at all.
Fly-fishing on the bank… and hoping for a bite.
In this case, I was able to get bites and overall landed 7 rainbow trout. Not bad as the weather was a bit cold and slightly windy, but nothing super cold and extremely wet. What started off not so promising, I ended up with a far better day in the end.
It took several hours and a broken fly rod but I finally landed one! A decent 1-2 pound rainbow trout as my first fish landed for the day.
My first rainbow trout of the day and I could finally put my name on the scoreboard.
I think this was my sixth fish out of seven for the day! Not bad for an afternoon after going 0 for 1 in the morning.