Fly Fishing at Simpson Valley, North Devon

If there is one glaring contrast between coarse and game fishing in the UK, it is that of catch and release practise. On stocked stillwaters, certainly, the coarse side is never “catch and kill” (unless you’re breaking the law) while the fly side is almost always exactly this; catch your bag and sling your hook, so to speak.



Which is why Simpson Valley Fishery makes a refreshing change. There are very few catch and release fly fisheries in Devon, full stop. Owners fear that their fish will either grow wary or they will lose stock anyway, due to the fragility of rainbow trout and (so, shoot me), the not very brilliant catch and release skills of many game anglers. Perhaps this is connected to the lack of catch and release fisheries?!!

But here, at least, in a quiet corner of North Devon, the game changes a little. You don’t have that risk of your day being over in under an hour, effectively, should the fish be too bold and easy to catch. Nor do you end up with four trout in the freezer when you only really needed one (even my trout in mustard sauce loses its charm after a couple of nights). Equally refreshing, as some readers might note with interest, you are free to lure fish here provided you use single barbless hooks.



A £20 day ticket is decent value for quality rainbow trout fishing, but fisheries such as this, and their stocks, need respect if the owners are to continue offering such tickets. Sensible rules include barbless hooks only and these tickets only running through the colder months, since rainbows suffer much higher mortalities in warm water. Nor should you take the piss, and I can think of little more pointless than catching silly numbers of trout by pulling streamers through the water. No, this is the type of fishery to try a subtle approach and enjoy testing different presentations with smaller flies.

Much as I enjoy getting features and pictures done, I like to keep a good number of sessions for pure pleasure these days. Excessive target setting and deadlines can be the enemy of fun. So I took my dad, a self-confessed fair weather fisher, for a semi-lazy day out.

At first, the trout were a little slow to respond on Mallard Lake. I tried a long leader with a Superglue Buzzer on point, but it was a Diawl Bach on the dropper that got the first take. A pretty fish of about a pound and a half, I barely handled it at all, keeping it wet using the landing net head in the margin. There really isn’t any need to yank these fish out and have them flap on the bank and get stressed.



But with the lake flat calm for the next hour or so, sport was slow and it didn’t take me long to dig a pike fly setup out of the car. Mallard is unusual in containing pike. Most fly fishery owners wouldn’t dream of stocking any. You don’t suspect there are many big pike in the lake; you tend to see little jacks that probably stay small, because they cannot handle the rainbows and without any coarse fish beyond the occasional perch they probably struggle to kick on. Even so, it’s worth a go for them here in your trout session, because there are almost certainly one or two good fish.


I did a lap of the whole lake in around an hour, running a large pike fly into every likely area. In fairness I did see one, and it was a good twenty…. centimetres. By which time, the breeze was picking up and I felt reasonably confident the trout would respond better.

Such is the way with buzzer fishing. If it’s flat calm, you have to manipulate the flies more. Nothing like as good as casting into a nice ripple and simply letting the flies drift with very little retrieve to speak of. Do nothing is often the best policy- just wait for the pull.

The bites were not always positive on a cool afternoon. With the next bite, the only signal was my leader “sinking” a bit too quickly. This in itself was an indication that the fish were a little higher in the water than I’d expected. In fact, you can tell a lot by the time it takes to get a bite, especially when you’re barely retrieving the flies. If it’s a good minute or more after casting out, you can be fairly sure that the fish are several feet down. Savvy anglers will then switch to heavier or lighter flies in order to spend more time in the “take zone.”


Pretty soon, the fair weather king also struck. And although we pretend not to keep score on these trips, he hit a run of trout to come from 2-0 down to 3-2 in the lead.

If anything, the action seemed better on the smaller Skylark lake, where the wind was concentrating the fish in one corner. I was getting bites on a Black Superglue Buzzer, but it still wasn’t plain sailing, with many bites quite tentative. Eventually, a switch to a smaller fly worked best- in this case a size 14 Satanic Buzzer, which has to be one of the greatest trout flies never to be commercially produced! Basically it’s a buzzer with two little red flexi-floss horns.



Could we have cleaned up on lure style flies? I don’t really care, because I love fishing the buzzer, using the elements for a natural presentation and picking out those subtler takes. We finished with a dozen trout between us, every one of them unhooked in the landing net with minimal handling.

A very pleasant and increasingly rare day off I’d say, with twelve trout between us a nice result for a crisp, cold day without a great deal of breeze or insect life! This is a cracking winter fishery and the C&R tickets run through till 1st of April if you’re keen to try. It’s also a spot I’ve used successfully on several occasions for guided fly fishing trips in Devon; do drop me a line if you fancy learning to fly fish, or refining your casting and fishing skills (more details on all my fishing tuition and guided angling here).

Last but not least, do take a look at the current Turrall Flies Blog for more fishing tips and some superb fly patterns. Chris Ogborne recently gave us a cracking little blog post on gearing up for saltwater sport, while the next entry will be focused on catch and release tips that both coarse and fly anglers can learn from. It still surprises me how few words are written on this important subject each season, while we cover tactics, baits and venues to death! To my mind, it’s something even experienced anglers can improve at and learn more about their quarry- myself included. Check out all the blog posts HERE.

Late Browns

In the world of day ticket fishing it's always refreshing to find someone doing something a little different. Our native species quite often miss out when it comes to stocking policies, whether it comes to filling lakes with carp or rainbow trout. Hence it was a welcome return to Bratton Water Fishery, near Barnstaple, today where the focus is now firmly on brown trout. Indeed, the river season might be long gone, but you can still have a go for the triploid browns here, which are cracking fish that run from a couple of pounds to the low teens.

In the company of Neil Edgar, who took some snaps and film clip into the bargain, I began with a quick net dip. Brownies might be catchable on lures but at a fishery with such abundant invert life it seemed a shame not to start in more natural fashion. The margins were crammed with corixa (water boatmen, to the layman) and freshwater shrimp, so I began testing the edges with either a small corixa or size 16 Tan Shrimp (my own pattern originally tied for roach and now made by Turrall).

It had been such a cold, foggy morning I was slightly taken aback to feel the first little pluck after just ten minutes or so in. I lifted the rod and a small explosion took place! These browns fight every bit as hard as rainbows. It might have been me, but if anything I found them more willing to come to the surface and thrash.

Brownies do have a few differences to rainbows, and as owner Mike was telling us, they can prove a little more challenging- not always such a bad thing to my mind, because fishing can be dull when it's too easy. These fish were well keyed into natural food and certainly responded well to small natural patterns. Great fun teasing these to life by counting down and employing a "picky" but not overly fast figure of eight retrieve.

Another feature of browns is that they don't cruise in quite the same manner as rainbows. Sure, they will move areas to feed, but they are definitely more territorial. This is why it pays to move spots quite regularly and I found that quite often if I wasn't getting bites, a change of areas quickly led to a response.

Ok, so these browns might not be wild river creatures, but it really shows that these fish are raised on site with TLC here. Powerfully built and beautifully marked, these are beasties to give the brownie addict sport right through the winter. They're more fussy in terms of raising and more expensive to farm due to their slower growth, but £30 for a 5 fish ticket is still pretty good value and I think I actually prefer them to rainbows.

Talking of rainbows, it was perhaps inevitable that we found one or two of them. I had switched to a Black Woolly Bugger, partly out of sheer curiosity, and after two further browns had launched themselves at it I hooked something that went on an absolutely searing run. I have long since avoided gossamer thin tippets for fisheries that hold big trout and on this occasion I was supremely glad to be on six pound fluorocarbon as I held on for dear life. A great way to round things off, this fish was absolutely stunning. Just the one rainbow then, but a fabulously coloured six pounder:


A very enjoyable day at a great little fishery overall; this place comes highly recommended for anyone looking for a good days fly fishing in North Devon. More details here: www.brattonflyfishery.com

In other news, I'm also thrilled to see that "Canal Fishing: A Practical Guide" has made the shortlist for the Angling Times "Angling Book of the Year" award. The winner is decided by a vote, so you know what I'm going to ask you next: please, if you value what I write then be a sport and give me your vote in the following survey:
ANGLING TIMES 2014 AWARDS

I cannot put it any more blatantly than that. Please. Pretty please. I'll buy you a pint and let you fish my favourite swim with illegal bait. Nor do you need to vote on every single thing in the survey, just the bits that you're interested in. Do such accolades matter? Well, it would partly make up for the omission of "Flyfishing for Coarse Fish" in the same awards list of two years ago, left out on the grounds that the title contained the words "fly fishing" presumably.

Flying West

Back to more active fishing this week. You can only contain me in a bivvy for so long before I get seriously restless. I did finally get into some carp at Darts Farm on another night session, but must have had three of the smallest fish in the lake. I couldn't wait to get back to some more impatient fishing, which started on the Bude Canal (above). This is a crazy little venue; every chance of a flounder amongst the roach. Or indeed a trout, and I had three on maggot or caster.

I waggler fished most of a short session, catching rudd steadily. With hindsight I should perhaps have spent longer down the track for the bream. It's not the prettiest or most sophisticated method, but a small method feeder was deadly. In fact it can be downright unfair- you can be sat there presenting the bait perfectly on a pole and fine tackle and yet next door someone is hauling fish out on a horrendous chunk of groundbait and 6lb hook length. There is a certain pleasure in watching the tip go crazy I suppose, and I landed a cracking bream and lost another two in perhaps 90 minutes of trying this, although pedalo warfare soon slowed things down. Not a bad catch though:

I've also been back on the trail of new waters, first up at St Tinney Farm, which has several of the sort of ponds that take you back to childhood- cute, leafy and stuffed with carp, roach and rudd. I took one look before reaching for the fly rod.

The water was hardly gin clear, so I went for a size 10 black and peacock. The rudd played ball from the off, and I also had some cat and mouse style fun with the carp. I had one suck in the fly without getting hooked, another keep nosing it for several yards and then, finally, a nice mirror bolting off. Just shows, you don't need chum mixers to lure carp. It takes a little more patience, but the fish of mature ponds know exactly what insects are:

I'm hoping to do more with St Tinney in fact (about 20 mins from Bude). There are lots of great little streams and stillwaters nearby as well as the coarse fish on site. Some nice rudd could also form some great guided trips on sunny afternoons. For today's mission, visitors Karl and son Callum Salmon (great fishy surname) were keen to learn to fly fish, so I took them to Simpson Valley to try a half day session. Well versed in coarse fishing techniques this was something entirely new to try.

Some anglers take a bit of practise, others are just naturally good with a fly rod. Callum was definitely one of the latter. I always like to start the process on a nice flat space without the distraction of fish, water and trees. After an hour or so of pointers on grass, he was already creating elegant loops on the lakes. Both our intrepid fly casters caught fish and hopefully caught the bug:

Bread, flies & floods

Some things in fishing, you can legislate for. Others keep you guessing. The location of fish is just one area nobody can predict with unerring certainty. Such was the case on a pole fishing trip, where I fancied another crack on breadpunch with Russ Hilton. We picked the wrong pegs at first- there had been fish around Charlton before in this particular area, but we couldn't buy a bite for a whole hour- and punch seems to work quite soon or not at all. Undaunted, we upped sticks and took a walk before deciding on a new area. The banks were horrendous, but we could see lots of silvers and several pike nearby too. It was bite a chuck fishing from the off, but rather a struggle to get anything over about an ounce. The place was absolutely heaving with small silver bream, and in fact the only thing which prevented constant bites was the odd pike boiling in the swim and sending the little buggers scattering. In the end, we knocked the session on the head and grabbed pike tackle. Drifted deadbaits were accepted in no time at all, with several runs in the space of perhaps 90 minutes. The pike were on the small side, as is typical for the cut, but fun nevertheless. Otherwise, It has been a period of hectic sorting things out, including a trip to hospital rapidly followed by the final, concluding day for my Level 2 Angling Coaching badge. The paperwork has been a nightmare- but the course itself worthwhile and I've learned a lot. By the end of it I needed a relaxing day out somewhere, and fancied a bit of stillwater fly fishing. I also caught up with the two Adams, Aplin and Moxey, for whom the whole idea of "catch and take" trout fishing was totally new. A pretty scene at Blakewell it was to, and as well as trout we could spot perch in the margins. Sure these never used to be here- contrary to the wishes of the management to remove them, I like seeing perch in trout lakes. Adam managed to catch one on a damsel nymph, while things started slowly with the trout. The first hits came not on naturals, but by switching to a good old Woolly Bugger: Funny how fisheries can change. Once upon a time, it felt like the fishing was almost too easy at Blakewell. On this occasion things took a bit of sussing- and the fish seemed to want a lure presented nice and slow, rather than stripped aggressively. The real turning point was switching to that purist's nightmare, the blob. With less weight than the goldheads, this fly could be fished much slower without dropping into the weed and it led to a hectic final hour. It's always especially pleasing to introduce others to a new type of fishing too, and it was brilliant to watch Adam Aplin play a first ever rainbow trout that leapt clear three times before hitting the net. A third new species on the fly rod for Adam then- and one very happy camper! On a more sobering final note, the damage to the Grand Western Canal has been a horrible shock. Even to the most ardent fisherman, when folks have to be evacuated, it does put the welfare of fish into perspective. I gather there is now a floodwater lake formed near Greenways. For man and fish alike, let's just pray things settle down.