Fish week 212 Returns 66 Rod average 3.2
A challenging week at Grafham, particularly for the bank anglers. However, fish are still being caught from the Dam either early in the morning or late in the evening when the sun hasn't pushed the fish out to deeper water. Best methods are fry patterns and other lures fished on an intermediate, vary your retrieve until you find what the fish want on the day. There have also been reports of some early shrimp feeders being caught on size 12’s so this is a promising sign that the fish may soon be moving back to the shore in search of food. The harbour arms are always worth a go and trout can often be seen hitting the shoals of pin fry and bait fish that inhabit the harbour. Again, we would recommend that you try early or late to maximise your chances.
Boat Anglers are picking up most of the fish at the moment and the boils is proving to be the go to spot for consistent action. Please remember that there is strictly no anchoring at the boils and we encourage boats to take turns drifting to allow everyone a go at the fish. There have been lots of fish showing in the middle of the reservoir so a drift from M buoy through the middle could well produce some good sport. Hedge End through to the long bank produced a good bag of fish to two of our regular anglers fishing on big reds and orange CDCs this week so that is another drift you might want to try.
The water clarity has greatly improved at Grafham this past week with many areas crystal clear and offering a good 10ft of visibility.
We also stocked another 2,500 pristine Rainbow trout on Wednesday 23 June and will be putting another 5,000 in early this week, this coupled with the promising weather forecast leads us to believe that the fishing will greatly improve in the coming week and we should see the rod average rocket back up as the anglers return.
Predator fishing has been steady at Grafham with many anglers catching plenty of Zander up to around the 14lb mark, a few pike to low 20s have also made an appearance and as always the resident perch are getting caught by the anglers who find the shoals. If you do decide to pop down for a go at the predators please remember to bring an unhooking matt and suitable forceps. As always all predator fish should be handled with extreme care and only removed from the water for a minimal amount of time.