Modern Angler

Nymph Fishing

Nypmh fishing is pretty much the bread and butter fishing in the UK all year round, admittedly the winter months favour more toward lures. However many anglers still have great success on montana's and Bloodworms during these colder months.

As anglers we should always be trying to read the water and determine the best approach for catching our intended quarry, whether that be Grayling or Brown Trout in our rivers or Stocked fish in stillwaters.

I bet alot of you reading this have gone to a fishery and before you have even reached the gate you know exaclty what flies you are going to try before you get there. Yes, i know we have our favourites as us fisherman are things of habit after all.

Chiromonid's make up around 80-90% of a trout's diet throughout the year and as anglers this is something we cannot miss out on. When the fish are on buzzers its very important for us to set up with a approach that will target these feeding fish.

Admittedly over the last few years i have worked very hard on improving my nymph fishing and this year on a recent trip to Belflask Trout Fishery near Ripon, North Yorkshire i finally decided to try fishing nymphs for the full day.

On Arriving at the fishery the weather was mild around 16C with a Light 10pmh westerly breeze. I opened the car door and i could see fish topping all over the lake, by the look of the rises the fish were feeding just sub surface.

After setting my rods up i walked down to my first peg and looked along the shore line to see hundreds of large Black buzzers Shucks. So having seen this i decided to set up with a 3 fly cast, opting to fish the washing line method on a floating line.

On the point i opted for a Black Boobie Diawl Bach, Middle Dropper i opted for a Black Buzzer with orange Cheeks and on the top dropper i decided to add a #14 Pheasant tail Nymph.

POINT

Middle Dropper

Top dropper

My tactics were very simple really, I cast out a long line from the bank and continuously Fan casting in the same area to make an attempt at covering new fish with each cast. My retrieve was a very slow figure of eight. Instantly i had a smash take which almost pulled the rod out of my hands. After a nice struggle the fish came to the net with the Booby in its mouth.

Second and third casts had the exact same reaction with very strong takes and great hard fighting trout both around the 3lb mark.

Throughout the day i changed the flies very slightly to keep the fish interested and ended the day with a total of 33 fish. To put this into perspective i spoke to 2 other anglers on the same day who had only caught 5 fish between them. When i asked what they had been fishing they told me buzzers and lures. But the main difference between me and them was the point fly (boobie) holding all my flies in the taking zone throughout the entire retrieve.