Rod average - 9.0
Grafham has fished really well this past week, aided in part by the cooler, windier conditions and a stocking of 2000 fish on the North shore. The newly introduced fish went straight onto the feed, which is not always the case with Summer stocked fish and have been quite straight forwards to catch, with them falling to a variety of methods.
Nymphs fished high in the water has been arguably the most popular method - so slow intermediate, tips lines and floaters, with fabs/blobs on the point. Most anglers are heading over to the north shore and are finding fish tight to the weed beds and then out maybe 100yds or so. Better fish have been caught also, with the dam being an area where these are showing up.
We hosted the fly dressers guild at the weekend, who had a very successful match. Report as follows:
"Fish had been found along the North shore from Hedge end to the dam wall and at the southern end of the dam. Most people caught on either a DI5 or 5 sweep with booby and blob and two cormorants. The fish were following the colour and turning down to take the drab flies in the middle.
Saturday was wet with a very variable wind. The fish hadn't moved but were more likely to chase the blobs or boobies and several anglers reported huge fish following but not taking. My boat partner lost a brown of over 6lb and we saw several rainbows of similar size.
Best line was a DI5 sweep with either a long leader, size 14 booby on the top dropper and a pale blob on the point or the same line with a short leader and a snake. Pink and black 3 inch snakes both worked. There were 10 limit bags of 12 fish and only 1 blank so a very successful competition. Most of the fish were in the shallows and up to 100 yards off the bank"