Hello all you visitors to the site. Firstly Huge apologies to my regular viewers for a lack of recent posts-but life here in the Lake District has been a little hectic for various reasons. (not that it is ever anything other!)

Apologies over,  here we are in summer and as usual at this time of year  the perch are out to play. Matt Keys is fast becomming the go to man when it comes to finding some good ones but a recent session of six big  two pounders proved I haven’t lost my touch!  Although still catchable, mainly because on occasion they’re just greedy fish,  the pike are best left alone in summer till the water cools down but we have  encountered a few salmon and sea trout. With the  decline in salmon numbers over  recent years I haven’t mentioned them for a while but the other week I met a beautiful fresh run eleven pound  fish when it grabbed hold of a small sea trout fly one afternoon on the lower Derwent. Great fun even if it was more than a bit worrying on a seven weight fly rod. Although it left me  a little bit shaken and very happy, the salmon swam away none the worse for its encounter.

I took the Doghouse down to Windermere back in June for the annual fly and lure sessions  and although there were no twenty pounders came along we had some great fights with pike up to high double figures that put serious bends in rods and wide smiles on a few anglers faces.  Regular good anglers  James and Fay Sherington came out for a day and Fay managed to battle it out with a cracking personal best fish  as seen in the picture below. The others of note are Steve Walsh’s doubles and Pete the Pike Mans’ good un off the back of Belle Isle. Personally don’t really bother about pb’s , I just enjoy the fishing but its always nice when someone gets their best ever on a day with me -at least I must be doing something right!. Interestingly, the bream shoals are showing up all over the place on Windermere with hundred pound plus bags of fish being reagular catches and I hear tales of ten pouinders coming along as well. I’ll have a shot after a few next time I go down there. I suspect once the pike make full use of them as a food source  we might see a few real monsters showing up. Beyond that, fishing seems to have become mainstream in peoples minds and we have been incredibly busy. We still manage (almost) to fit everyone in but it is always best to book well ahead.  But as it has been raining here in the Lake District I am going fishing…For salmon!

Stay safe and take care.

Tarra

Eric