Toft Newton- Stripping lures...

With the afternoon off work I met up with the old man to try and land a few trout at Toft Newton, North Lincs. What seemed quite a calm day was some what choppy as we walked up the banking and onto the reservoir wall.

Wandering around to the far side of the res we could see fish topping and crashing all over, with wind on our backs we both decided to strip lures, opting to try different colours dad set off with a classic white lure whilst I stripped a orange lure through mid water on an intermediate line. With the Polaroids on I could see numerous trout following the lure in from deeper water though making no attempt to strike. Changing the intermediate line over for a sinking line I felt the presentation was better as the lure worked deeper, with long sweeps of my left arm I was getting interest by stripping line very quickly.

With the sun high in the sky I decided to change over to a gold an black lure, this therefore would standout as a silhouette stripped quickly 2/3 feet under the surface. The appeal was instant and the rod hooped over and jerked as I released the line through my left handed and connected with a lovely rainbow trout. After a short fight dad slipped the net under the fish.

Casting out the lure again I was finding it more beneficial to cast diagonally to my left and bring the lure along the slope of the reservoir. A few casts after the first fish the lure hit the water again, 3 sweeping strips and the line was peeling back out through my fingers as a good rainbow erupted from the water and went aerial. Several darting runs and a couple more aerial displays later i finally had the fish in the net.

The old man was next to get in on the action taking a nice trout on a muddler before the wind change direction and we followed the fish around to a calm flat area where they were heavily preoccupied on buzzers just under the surface and the occasional rise to a fly on the surface. Switching back over to a floating line I matched up a dark brown dry fly to the ones skipping off the surface. Casting out the fly as far as I could, I lost sight of the small brown pimp bobbing on the surface so resorted to tucking the rod under my arm and peering through the binoculars at the fly. As a fish rolled on the fly taking it as it dived just under surface i was unsure whether the fly had actually been taken though as the mono straightened into my fly line I struck hard and got what felt like a good hook hold, though the first movement aerial this fish made shook the hook and I was left to think what could have been as this fish was easily out weighed the previous one. Chucking the dry fly out again I gave it another 15 minutes are received no more takes and then gave the lure and sinking line another go to no prevail.