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This is maybe something very different, being a fishing report as opposed to a hunting report, but it was a wonderful trip and in my mind worthy of a tale. Plus the fishing forum gets hardly any traffic - so this may boost it! Where are all the Pacific marlin, Bolivia dorado and Bahamas bone fish stories guys?

In addition to hunting, I am extremely passionate about fly fishing and have been for decades. I caught the bug at an early age and went thru all the phases - carbon, bamboo and now (big time) glass! I also tie my own flies and have thousands of dollars worth of Whiting capes, Indian capes, jungle cock capes, seals fur dubbing, threads, skins, hooks and more and more - more than a dozen tiers could get thru in a dozen lifetimes! As I said ´passionate`!

Moving on - ever since my youngest son was big enough to take part - around six - we have both gotten away on an annual father and son holiday. In Africa, when we lived there full time, it was long weekends in the bush wingshooting or hunting impala and warthog. Now in Europe, it has been roe buck trips and driven boar shoots in winter. We missed a few years - Covid, he a new job etc - but are now back in the swing and this year we decided to leave the guns at home and venture afield with the fly rods - a week of hiking and fly fishing in the Lake District in North Yorkshire in the UK.

It was easy to put together - a return P&O ferry from Rotterdam Holland to Hull England, an AirBnB cottage in a village in the Lake District (with 3 pubs nearby) and more than 20 plus lakes to fish! Five days in total being two travel days and three and a half days self organised fly fishing. My son would do the driving and I the bookings and planning!

We opted to fish two Windermere Angling Association lakes, stocked with rainbows and brown trout up to 5 plus lbs and then two mountain tarns reported to hold wild brown trout averaging half a lb . A contrast of club waters and wild hill waters! Licences were purchased on-line for the club lakes whereas the mountain tarns were free to fish, covered by a general UK Environment Agency Game Fishing Licence.

As for the gear, I am heavily into glass rods at present, in fact my wife gave me a Kabuto 7‘6‘‘ 3 piece 4 weight glass rod for my birthday this year! So it was clear that this would be a glass trip - the Kabuto, a 1970s Eagle Claw 7 weight, a Garcia Colon 6 weight and a (carbon) Hardy 1 weight specifically for the small roach and perch - in addition to the trout - in the one lake that we planned to fish, which I know from a trip there some 20 years ago. My son - relatively new to fly fishing - would fish his 5 weight Explorer with a floating line and at times borrow one of my glass rods. A couple of boxes of previously tied flies plus a box of ties specifically for this trip and the gear list was complete. Fitting for the Lake District, I tied up a couple dozen North Country spiders (soft hackle wet flies) as well - snipe and purple, waterhen bloa, orange partridge, snipe bloa and more.

A note on the Kabuto fly rod - these are almost cult status glass rods made by Yasuyuki Kabuto in Hokkaido Japan. Simplistically beautiful and minimalist thru and thru. My rod is a 7’6” three piece four weight on a dark yellow blank with a dark flamed stacked bamboo reel seat and nickel down-locking reel hardware with a red agate stripping guide. Simplistically beautiful!

Mid May came about fast and we packed our gear plus a couple of bags of home groceries and set off mid morning towards the port of Rotterdam and the late afternoon P&O ferry for the overnight English Channel crossing to Hull.













On board a pint, something to eat, thirty minutes of the on-board entertainment and we retired to our cabin for the smooth and uneventful ferry crossing to Hull, England, to arrive early morning, exactly on schedule, to sunshine and blue skies!

From Hull to the Lake District was an easy 2 hour drive and after dropping our luggage at the AirBnB, we headed to Ghylls Head Reservoir and our first fishing session!














I opted to fish my new Kabuto 4 weight and after rigging and kitting up, I was casting and pulling back a size 12 damsel pattern in some great deep water at the bottom end of the lake.





Within 30 minutes I had my first rainbow in the net, just over a pound and a pretty decent fight. We fished on, enjoying the scenery and the sunshine. A few knocks and a few chasers and then I switched patterns and fished buzzers. Another fly angler was fishing big pink lures and seemed to be doing pretty well. I spoke to him later and he told me he was prepping for a competition the following weekend. 8 lb tippet and 6 inch pink fritzes! Each to their own, me I am more traditional even if I catch less! Now that could be an interesting debate!

We moved around the lake and I caught and released a blue trout of about 3 lb that fell to a size 18 Shipman’s buzzer fished on top.

Around 6 pm and after some 4 or 5 fish between us, we called it a day and drove back to Ingleton and our AirBnB for a quick shower and change and then the local pub! The accommodation was a tradition terraced stone cottage with one room and a kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms on the first floor and a small bathroom. Nicely decorated and more than adequate for us for the week.





A couple of pints and a great ham & eggs with chips - classic pub grub - and an early night in anticipation of the hike and wild tarn the next day!





I fished Hayeswater Tarn some 20 years ago and loved it. It is a natural lake which serves as a reservoir for the town of Penrith. It is a good hours uphill hike to about 1.400 ft to get to the lake and it is worth every step. Beautiful raw scenery and rocky crags surround the tarn with bank fishing all around.











It was windy the day we were there which made casting somewhat difficult but we managed and we fished the whole tarn over some 6 hours that we were there. A pasty lunch break and a bottle of water whilst we watched an osprey fall from the skies and hook into a decent sized wild trout. Amazing to watch!














My son caught whilst I blanked but nevertheless it was a wonderful day of flyfishing in stunning surroundings and I was happy to see him hook and land a beautiful wild brown on a foam grasshopper tied by me! I fished the 1970s 7 weight Eagle Claw glass rod with a Sharpes reel and floating line and I loved it, punching out long casts and pulling in small flies or floating dry flies in the scum lines. Great stuff!

Someone had gone to the trouble of piecing together the bones of a dead sheep! A north country puzzle!





A pint of Hobgoblin in the Kings Head at the top of the Kirkstone Pass rounded off the fishing and then it was an hours drive back to Ingleton and a great evening meal in the Masons Arms. Life is good!





Our third day we fished a stocked lake, Bigland Hall, also known as Otter Tarn. A beautiful lake holding browns, rainbows, tiger trout and blue trout. The water was so clear you could see the fish cruising the margins and feeding, but catching them was a different story! The fly life was prolific with caddis, duns, midges, damsels and more coming off the water and hovering over the shallows.








But we succeeded, with me catching my first tiger trout early in the morning followed by a number more, including a brown hen fish that we took for the table. She was hooked deep in the gills and I opted to take her rather than risk her bleeding out. I had fun fishing and casting the Garcia Colon rod, again a 1970s fly rod, paired up with a simple Battenkill click and paw reel.

















My son caught a nice rainbow which we also took. The GBP 30,- licence allows 2 trout per angler to be taken and we saw a number of flyfishermen walking away from the water with bags containing fish. With our two fish in our bag dinner was guaranteed!

It was wonderful fishing again in beautiful surroundings. If you ever visit the Lake District, Bigland Hall is a must on the fly fishing list!

That evening I seasoned and flour coated the two trout and we enjoyed them with toasted almonds and new potatoes and a glass of wine! Fresher fish you can hardly wish for!





The following day we fished a new water to me / us, Goats Water Tarn. A high mountain tarn (read lake) up at the head of Coniston village. A good 90 minute hike up to the lake, which we took at a steady pace whilst being overtaken by a couple of young and very athletic rock climbers that we were able to watch as they climbed the western crags of the lake whilst we fished later in the morning.















Goats Water is not a big water and we fished the whole tarn in a couple of hours, enjoying the sunshine and the banter between us. I fished my Kabuto 4 weight and loved it, taking a beautiful 1/4 lb golden wild brown trout on a size 12 Montana nymph! I have a couple of knocks and dropped a decent sized fish, again on a nymph, but that one small fish was all I landed for the day. And that one fish was worth the hike and later the stiff calves! Wonderful!








We visited the historic old market town of Kendal in the afternoon, but we found the town centre and high street to be tired, run down and somewhat depressing with every second shop closed. Kendal has seen better times. We called in at Carlsons Fishing Tackle on the main street. They have been around a long time and we chatted to the owner - fishing, weather, what lakes were doing well and the other usual stuff.

That evening we had a fabulous meal at the Marton Arms in Ingleton. A wonderful restaurant / pub, with a NZ chef who comes over every year to run the restaurant for some 6-7 months during the tourist season. The food was mouth-watering and the ales and beers were great too!

Our last day, at the advice of the owner of Carlsons in Kendal, we drove to Bessy Becks fishery and spent the morning casting to and catching stocked fish on three small ponds in beautiful surroundings. The fishery was busy, with some 20 plus other anglers arriving throughout the morning. We were happy with the fish we caught and called it a day around 2 pm for the 3 hour drive back to Hull and the ferry to Rotterdam.





We had a wonderful return crossing, enjoying a good roast beef from the carvery and a couple of pints from the bar before calling it a night.





It was an easy drive home from Rotterdam the following morning after a great week of great fun hiking and fly fishing in The Lake District, a mixture of stocked lakes and totally wild highland tarns, rainbows, tigers, blues and browns in wonderful surroundings and awesome weather!

It was not marlin or 10 lb Kiwi browns or 6 lb Bahamas bones. In many ways it was better - it was a wonderful and memorable simple weeks fly fishing with my youngest son and something we hope we can repeat next year - fly fishing for trout in the north country lakes!





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