£550.00
If you've been following this blog from the beginning you'll know that when I was first getting into Fly Fishing I visited Kennick quite a lot in my first season with Mike my fishing buddy, and didn't do too well. Mike, on the other hand, usually caught five or six fish a visit. At the time Mike was a season ticket holder at Kennick and it was hard to get him to fish anywhere else.
I still fish with Mike most weekends, but we rarely fish Kennick any more because the fishing has become so hard - we only went twice last year, and the reports we were hearing of how patchy and hard the fishing had become didn't encourage us to go back.
But today was the start of the new season, so we thought we'd give it a try. We got to the water at about 6am - there were a couple of other anglers there before us and over the next hour the place really filled up - there was hardy a spare place on the bank by 7:30.
So, what was the fishing like - in a word -dire! I spoke to a lot of anglers during the day, either when they walked past me, or when I walked back to the car at about 2:30 in the afternoon, and the story was the same - either nothing, or the odd fish, with one or two anglers getting 3 or 4 fish each. Mike and I fished hard all day for 2 or 3 tentative takes that we didn't hit, and we went home fishless, as did most of the other anglers we spoke to.
There were a lot of unhappy anglers at Kennick today, and its not what you expect from what is described as the jewel in the crown of Devon's trout fisheries. From what I saw, only one in three anglers even caught a fish, and whatever the problem is, it needs to be sorted out. I wont be back again in a hurry.
I like my fishing to be challenging, as an experienced coarse angler of some 40 years, I have no love for the overstocked carp puddles that are so popular now, and I like to have to work for my fish, but with over 3 years of fly fishing under my belt, I don't expect to go nearly 8 hours without even looking like catching a fish on a 'premier' trout water.
I haven't posted on this blog for a while, but I've been catching a lot of trout!
When I started this blog I was definitely a complete beginner. Looking back over the last couple of months during which I've caught my limit most times I've been out, I suppose now I would have to say that I've progressed beyond that, although I'm a long way from being an 'expert'.
Mostly competent would probably be a fair description of my current abilities, I've sorted out the casting now, maybe I'm still a little heavy handed, but distance is no longer an issue, and where I fish, the stocked rainbows and browns don't seem to mind the odd splash when I don't get the timing quite right.
I've mostly fished at Blakewell and Bratton fisheries, both near Barnstaple, and generally I've found that the fish at these waters have wanted a fairly big white fly most of the time - size 10 or 8, with plenty of dressing and a bead head to take the fly below the surface.
I've caught on both floating and intermediate lines with similar flies on the hook, sometimes just under the surface, and sometimes deep depending on where the majority of the fish are on the day.
The most successful patterns for me over the last couple of months have been the Cats Whisker, Nomad and Damsel, all weighted and all mostly white in colour.
Wily browns and naturalised rainbows on other waters may want more imitative patterns; small nymphs like the Diawl Bach, but where I fish, big, weighted and white seems to work best and these days I make sure I have plenty in my fly box.
I buy most of my flies from eBay and have found that most sellers supply good quality flies at very reasonable prices. Here are some links if you want to take a look: