Rutland Water week ending 2 September

Boat anglers have enjoyed tremendous sport at Rutland recently recording fish in good numbers on a regular basis – giving a very respectable rod average of 6.13 for the week.

Most of the main basin has provided the majority of sport with the aerators drawing good numbers of anglers. Long open drifts across from the Sailing Club to Yellowstone and also Carrot Creek to Whitwell frontage have also thrown up fish albeit not in the same numbers as the basin. Reports of fish showing around the tower in the north arm were encouraging, these fish proved hard to tempt though.

High numbers of fish were found in drifts between the aerators and all the way to the dam. Midge tip/floating lines with nymph/lure combinations, traditional wet flies, silver Invicta, soldier palmers and even dabblers caught for some. The fish are high in the water in the basin so keeping the flies up is a must. A good starting point is FAB on the point and diawl bachs or crunchers up the cast.

With the main basin providing consistent sport, only a few boats have ventured down the arms, albeit for a few fish, with most anglers coming back in to the basin to catch a fish.

Ranger Nigel Savage saw more than enough trout feeding on tiny buzzers on the surface last Friday whilst predator fishing – that made him regret not opting to take a dry fly rod out instead. The recent  good hatches of these really tiny buzzer (about the size of green fly) have been noticeable late in the evening with a few sedge also coming off, but no interest shown from the trout. Late season olive hatches are possible and maybe daddy long legs soon?

With the days getting shorter and temperatures coming down it won’t be long before someone has a good day’s fishing around the many weedbeds that are dotted around the shoreline this year. Expect masses of fry to feature, perch/roach and stickleback, also corixa, snail and shrimp.

Season ticket holder Jake Waterman had a late afternoon session last Thursday and was straight into fish from the off. Jake hooked into 20 fish and netted up to 18 of them. Rangers Matthew Tabram and Mark Macleod took to the water during the week to take advantage of the fantastic sport on offer. They fished floating and hover lines to record 24 fish to the boat, with FAB’s and nymphs doing the business for the pair.

Predator fishing commenced on 1 September with anglers keen to take to the water to have a go at Rutland’s famous zander population.
Anglers reported large numbers of fish to the boat to vertical jigging tactics. Some anglers travelled further down the arms to target the pike and were rewarded with plenty of double figure fish with the best reported at 22lb to top predator angler Neville Fickling.

We would like to remind anglers of the new predator rules for this season regarding hooks –

All hooks are to be barbless with the exception of one point that can be used to attach the hook to a lure.

The use of barbed hooks for predator fishing will not be tolerated, we want all anglers to enjoy a day’s fishing with us but within the rules please.

Midweek boat winner:  Mr Thomas of Redcar.

Forthcoming events

Predator lure fishing 1-30 September

Fly fishing for Pike 16 May to 31 January 2019

WaterAid 13 September

Anglian Water Rudder Match 15 September 01780 686441.

Anglian Water Airflo International Final 1-3 October by qualification

World Lure Fishing Championships 11-14 October

Beginners courses:  See our page for full details