Dave and I decided we would have a go for a bigger trout this week and the obvious choice within reasonable distance from our area was Pennine Trout Fishery, a water we hadn’t fished for 10 years or more. Pennine holds trout to over 20lb and regularly produces doubles. It’s a well run fishery, very popular, and well worth the occasional visit.


Dave Chilton returns the best fish of the day
We had arranged to meet Dave Chilton when we arrived at mid-day but Dave was held up and didn’t make it until the evening, which was a good move anyway as that was when the best fishing started. Stu Johnson, who has never flyfished, came to see us to have a quick look and ended up staying for about four hours.

Dave (Colclough) and I had a few trout to about 2lb or so through the afternoon, fishing various buzzers at various depths, but it was hard work and the stiff breeze into our faces was making casting awkward, so I changed from my #5 rod to a #7/8.

Dave (Chilton) went straight onto a big lure, an orange fritz, when he arrived and not long after caught the biggest fish of the day, a lovely, full-tailed fish of 6 – 7lb.

But from then on it was buzzers all the way, mainly olive epoxy buzzers, fished by twitching them back pretty fast about a food below the surface.

Dave (Colclough) had the lion’s share with about a dozen fish while Dave (Chilton) and I had about eight or nine each.

We finished the day with a nice brew in the Fisherman’s Hut and a bag of chips on the way home. Lovely!