BAILIFFS TOP TIPS

The Lakes in general are not very deep, about ten feet, with a few exceptions, such as "Charlies Hole" on Tern and Mallard Pool at Copston which are both over twenty feet deep. We train our fish to look-up, and they are usually not very far down in the water. A trained eye can often see them by the interference their bodies make to the ripple.

You can use wet lines and lures on the lakes (within the international competition size limit) and you will catch fish, but for the purpose of this page, and that I have never used such techniques to the point of competence, yet alone the level at which to give advice, I will keep to the use of a floating or neutral line, the latter to evade the effect of the prevalent wind at Copston and reduce line "bow" rather than to get down into the water. This is quite easily obtained by using any weighted fly and lots of tippet at the end of the leader.

 
So; let's get started. Try travelling light, even the cheapest waistcoats hold enough tackle to start a small fishing shop. Get one that can carry a good telescopic net on the back or modify your own with some type of loop for the job, I have added a long loop of old fly line, it works well and hanging lower that the neck is easier to reach  when wearing a few layers of fleeces etc. Vital equipment would include but not be limited to, a de-barbing device, (mine are circlip pliers and cost 75p from a market stall, they work right down to a size 20) line snippers as collected from the christmas crackers, forceps, floatant, flies, a piece of chamois to dry-off wet flies, a priest, a de-hooking device such as the "Ketchum tool" and spare tippet lines 8lbs to 3lbs in old money. I recommend Rio or Frogs Hair flouropolymer. They are a bit more expensive but crucially a  bit thinner than the budget ones, and a 50m spool should last ages.  The really interesting point on these floro lines is that they are so thin that despite their relative density being higher than water, and in theory expected to sink, the weights below about eight pounds just sit on the surface film and will not respond to any sinking agent I have tried. This should, in theory be a problem when using dry fly when tradition instructs us to sink the terminal foot of line to deceive the fish, but in practice it has never in my experience been a problem, and the secondary effect of sinking that last bit of line is that it tended to pull down the fly as the tippet got wetter calling for frequent applications of floatant!  Time to go fishing.