Down for Browns.

I have become slightly obsessed with ultralight fishing for Brown Trout recently and have both been hiking in the hills and fishing my local lake area, it has been really quite enjoyable and challenging.

My casting has seemed to be more accurate of late and I have only smashed the lip on one lure, albeit one of my nice handmade lures by Pan.

One make of lures I have found incredibly consistent are those made by a Polish firm called TAPS, they are rather epic yet inexpensive lures.

The other tackle I have been using is my HTO Rock Rover, Shimano Complex Ci4+ 2500HGS and 0.6 PE Braid. 

So far I have only caught very small fish, but they are so well marked and such a charming species I don't care at all. I am sure I will encounter some larger fish at some stage and this is still very much a learning curve for me.

I hope you enjoy the pictures;

Tight Lines.

A Little Fun Tonight.

I joined a local angling club today so I can have the odd bit of fun on the local trout fisheries, something I have been considering for a while. With that I headed out for a couple of hours armed with my HTO Rock Rover and a few lures, I fished Cooks Dam which is situated between Llanbedr and Cwm Nantcol.

While I would honestly prefer to fish unstocked waters for wild fish, Cooks Dam is just a stones throw from me and offers some fun sport, in fact first cast resulted in a fish.

I had another couple too which fell to the DUO Spearhead Ryuki 50s.

They are pretty good scrappers though and as already said "a bit of fun", quite a relaxing and pleasant way to spend an evening after work!

Tight Lines.

Decorating the Dwyfor!

I'm really trying to mix things up at the moment as I have been finding my fishing a bit stale and repetitive and have fancied making some use of the local Trout fishing for some time.

I also have been wanting to drag Russell of Criccieth Tackle Box away from his epic workload, as he is a nice chilled bloke to fish with. 

So last very windy and rainy Thursday we decided to meet and fish the Afon Dwyfor for Trout.

Russell knows this game much better than myself and he had good expectations of fish swimming up river as the tide met the mountainous run off.

Starting off things were slow and the river was quite low, I had a couple of hits on a MegaBass spoon and Russell had a Sea-trout as we made our way down to the patch of free water. Actually working through the pools Russell was getting far more follows than I, he was using small plugs and I was using Mepps style spinners and other spoons, I therefore nicked one of his Duo Spearhead Ryuki's and as instructed by Russell, I made a twitchy retrieve.

Finally I saw a fish come up for my lure and hit it! I couldn't actually believe it as I had been fishing like a bit of a fanny all morning. Russell knew this wasn't a trout straight away and told me "you have a Shad on!"

I have never caught a Shad and it was so kool watching it come up and engulf this little plug!

I played it pretty badly into Russell's net and he kindly got a photo for me, I was made up!

They actually fight pretty damn well and go a bit acrobatic for a time. I lost another straight after too, but before long things went quiet. 

By this time the flood run off had started to fill the river and Russell instructed me that we'd get more action back upstream as the fish were running up into the rain water, so we headed off again. I was busy decorating the far bank with my lures by this point , I was still fishing pretty badly and just kept over shooting my casts which started to become expensive!

Russell also hooked and lost a pretty good fish in one of the small falls and was noticeably irritated  at this (as anyone would be). after giving it another good go we decided to head back to the shop for lunch, I also needed to buy a few of these epic plugs! 

Russell has quite the selection in his shop, from hand made beauties to the rather special Duo Spearhead Ryuki's and I ended up buying a couple of each before heading back down to the river.

We just stayed on the upper pools for the second leg, where I managed to lose another two Spearhead Ryuki's to the damn far bank! I did bag a couple of trout though.

The second Trout I had was quite funny; I hooked it close to the bank downstream and it actually jumped straight on the bank, unhooked itself and flipped back into the water! Times like that I wish I had my Action Cam rolling!

I learnt a lot that day though, Russell really knows his stuff and river and though I caught more than him, he was a top guide and as always, a pleasure to fish with, I hope we will do it again soon!

Here's a shot of Russell casting (properly) on the Dwyfor;

Seriously too, if you are heading out for some trout soon and are in the Criccieth area, pop in the shop and take a gander at his fancy plug collection, I was surprised at how they out fished the spoons and very much doubt I will go out without them again!

If you go down to the Dwyfor at low water too you'll be in with a fair chance of bagging three Spearhead Ryuki's, one Rapala Ultra Light Minnow, one MegaBass Area Trout spoon and two Hanson Spoons! Yep all in the trees due to my especially shite casting that day.

Tight Lines.