Some heavy rain in the middle of last week kept a few anglers away dashing our hopes of an attendance similar to the previous week – that said we still enjoyed a decent steady turnout, we just love you to take full advantage whilst the fishing is so good…………………….

The last week made it in to our top 3 attendances of the season as anglers took advantage of the recent great fishing weather and enjoyed Toft during ‘primetime’.

In keeping with the general trend recently, imitative tactics reigned supreme again with a mixture of nymph and dry fly tactics accounting for probably 90% of the fish caught. Favourite patterns included both olive and black buzzers, crunchers, diawl bach, hares ear, shipmans, shuttlecocks and daddies. Its been great to see that our fish are really piling the weight on with the masses of natural food available, many anglers have reported catching several fine quality fish in the……….

98 rods caught 739 trout for a rod average of 7.54

A real bumper week again!

As we slip into May the season is well and truly in full swing and the fish obliging on the whole to the imitative approach employed by most of the anglers. Those that have fared best seemed to be the ones that could spot when to change depths, during brighter spells dropping deeper seemed to be a decent way to keep catching a few fish……..

123 Anglers caught 360 fish for a rod average of 2.92

A week started with some promise and good settled weather soon turned abit less consistent and tested the resolve of anglers to the limit. A stiff north easterly breeze and bright sunshine for the second half of the week did little to maintain last weeks incredible rod average and those that fished from boat whilst slightly less comfortable probably enjoyed the better sport……………. 

116 anglers caught 794 trout for a rod average of 6.84

Toft keeps giving at the moment and our excellent stock of fish have proved to be very cooperative indeed. At the risk of sounding like a broken record nothing much has changed in the way of tactics – it’s the time of year to generally adopt an imitative type of approach……………………………

75 anglers caught 493 trout (67 killed) for a rod average of 6.57

Windy weather made for a slightly quieter week than we would have liked, the fishing however remained fabulous as Tofts trout gorged on the massive profusion of buzzers throughout the levels of the water column. Both black and olive buzzer imitations played a big part in catches and as lots of quality trout made their way to the landing nets of our anglers.

We spooned several fish this week to help us to ‘match the hatch’ and you can see from the pictures that they were certainly feeding very well indeed – the majority of the sport has been with floating lines and imitative types of flies – the real ‘cream’ of the seasons fishing – its literally buzzer soup out there!

55 rods caught 482 trout for a rod average of 8.76.

Its still exceptional sport though the weather seemed to keep a few of you at home meaning we didn’t manage to replicate the terrific attendance of the previous week – in truth aside from a couple of decent showers it really wasn’t as bad as the forecast would have you believing – they’ve certainly got a lot to answer for.

Fish seemed to move up and down through the layers a little and those fishing subsurface are advised to keep swapping the point fly between a Buzzer or a small Booby or FAB to stay in touch with the feeding depth……

127 rods caught 1123 trout for a rod average of 8.84

WOW! Simply wow!, a fantastic week at Toft with the best turnout of the season so far and fabulous fishing to match. There has really been something for everyone with all methods finding a few fish at one time or another. It has to be said that sport was very much a nymph fishers dream, floating or ‘tip’ style lines provided great catches and a full array of our usual patterns such as Organza’s, Diawl Bach, Hares Ear, Pheasant Tail plus the usual array of Buzzers. For the anglers liking a more active style of fishing, intermediate lines and long tailed damsels have found a few fish and for the ‘pure’ amongst you the dries have certainly put fish in the net with a Palamino Midge pattern doing the business for Tony Smith during a boat session. tony was part of a group from Nottinghamshire

95 rods caught a total of 595 trout giving a rod average of 6.26.

Just as we had predicted the onset of some warmer weather really kicked things into life and several anglers managed to crack the code with some great catches from both boat and bank – the boats certainly cover more fish and have caught bigger numbers but bank anglers can help themselves by moving around more frequently.

Boat anglers fared very well again using sinking lines and fishing deeper throughout the day, bank anglers did very well on buzzer patterns catching the majority of their fish in the warmest part of the day from lunch time onwards. the fish can at times move up and down in the water column and changing between straight line buzzer fishing and washing line tactics can certainly bring results at the right time of the day.

57 rods caught a total 0f 219 trout for a rod average of 3.84

Its fair to say that the boats enjoyed some fabulous sport with the majority of the fish being out in deeper water – that said the last couple of days with some warmer weather have seen a distinct upturn in the fortunes of bank anglers.

From the boats, anglers found sunk line tactics to be by far the most effective method with smallish black and olive lures and boobies on Di5 type lines being by far and away the best option. to get the most out the method you should count the line down to different depths until you find where the fish are holding, vary the retrieve again until you find the most effective style on the day. Many fish have been coming on the hang at the end of the retrieve and adding a line marker to your sinking line will help you to know when its time to hang the flies……..

52 anglers caught a total of 237 fish giving an overall rod average of 4.55.

The boats offered the most consistent sport again over the last week, the bank can at times appear to be fabulous one day and the harder the next – some anglers have definitely got the methods sussed where as others are perhaps a little behind. Anglers taking to the boats are urged to fish deeper with Di-5 or Di-7 lines and either black or………

41 rods caught 108 trout for a rod average of 2.63. Its fair to say that its been still a tad on the breezy side following on from the storms of the week previous and I’m pretty sure that if more boats has been able to go out then we would have seen a lot more fish c aught – those that accessed the deeper water certainly faired better…….

20 anglers caught 93 trout for a rod average of 4.65 in spite of some extremely tricky conditions – lets face it, it was at times worse than awful out there, in fact we had 3 days without any anglers at all though we wouldn’t deem this as a surprise given the weather.

We’re pretty pleased with the results generally across the board and in line with recent weeks floating and intermediate lines teamed with either washing line tactics or the usual early season type lure patterns have offered the most consistent sport……..

48 rods caught 195 trout of which 18 were killed giving a rod average of 4.06.

Last week was certainly one of mixed fortunes and those that took to the boats definitely enjoyed the best of the sport. Anglers venturing afloat generally used sunk line tactics with lure patterns such as Snakes, Humungus, Fritz Lures, Damsels and Boobies. Vary the retrieve as always until you find how the fish want it.

Those anglers fishing the bank have mainly stuck to Tofts ‘Bay’ area between the draw off tower and the boat ramp – it seems to have been a particular hotspot for the last few weeks with fish probably being held there by slightly warmer more sheltered water. A few fish have certainly now moved down the south bank with the area around …….

39 rods caught 127 fish of which 13 were killed giving a rod average of 3.25

In truth we were probably always going to get a slightly slower week with so much bad windy weather – it can make casting and controlling he equipment a lot harder work than we would like it to be – but understandable too………..

40 anglers managed a total of 316 trout of which 15 were killed.

Its certainly just a tad draughty as I write this morning though the more settled weather earlier in the week certainly meant we’ve enjoyed some really good sport. With not a lot to pick between the boats and bank over the last week there’s been something for everyone and its been great to see plenty of rods bending – predominantly in the south west corner for bank anglers and all over the lake for those in boats.