There be monsters

There be monsters in that pool over there says the son of the fishery owner, I remember his father telling me on one of my visits few years ago that they grow their own Trout stock on and only add them to their C&R lake when they hit 6lbs! I have seen reports over the years of upper double figure fish caught there. Narborough fishery is a Trout Master registered Fishery, and you can see why when you realise what they have cruising past your peg!

It’s been just over 2 years since I last visited Narborough Fishery located in the Breckland parish of Norfolk and in fact that last time I did go there was with my fishing buddy Martin Smith aka Trout magnet! We had made our plan to visit Narborough a few weeks ago on our last outing, with a little fine tuning during the few days up to Saturday and we were set to go; not ever fuel shortages would stop us going fishing! We arrived just before the gates opened, parked up while we tried to discuss tactics. As it’s been so long since I was last there, I was just going with the flow, and I knew I had my Scruffy Tiger trout pattern with me. Small/white or white snake I recon says Martin, thinking over what I know is in my small fly box; yep, got both covered.
We headed to the fishery shop to pay our day tickets, now some will know that the last 3 odd years I have spent much of my time on Coarse fish. A big part of that is due to the cost compared to a single day on trout, for example: the cheapest trout day ticket is £24 for the day/take 4 trout and most expensive at £70. For that same money I can pay for one whole year membership to the cheapest coarse club (and have change) that covers MILES of water or at the higher end of the price range cover me for two to three coarse club waters for the YEAR or Winter/3 months. One thing to note here is that I know full well that Trout do cost more to stock and on the rivers/drains I am fishing for wild species that don’t need re-stocking. In addition, trout fishery’s also spend much more on maintenance of the banks than Coarse clubs, But I do enjoy the challenge of casting in externally tight spots in-between the reeds/trees. When I chat to coarse anglers, they are put off by the higher prices, I find I am the same and only target trout when the rivers are closed for coarse season….. The tug is a drug, and we all need our fix.

Back to Narborough and we head up to the C&R lake. OK it’s not so much of a lake as my 1^st ever trip there I was only 2-3 months in to fly fishing and I was able to cast to the opposite bank! Yesterday I decided not to target the Daffodils several meters beyond the opposite bank halfway down it near the otter fencing! You can easily cover the whole pond from three spots. It’s an old stock pond that was converted into the C&R lake, semi wedge shaped and at most 4ft deep.
The water clarity is crystal and that’s when you see them, Absolute HUGE fish cruising past your swim. Not just one or two, but several! Now anyone who tells you that stocked Trout are easy to catch, has not fished this place! These monsters are not stupid, most have been caught before and once they realise your there, they switch off but carry-on cruising past you. I swear they are flipping the bird as they come past! The leader minimum is 10lbs for this fishery and while I was sorting out my leader, Martin was into his 1st fish of the day just 3 casts in and realising he had left his landing net at home; I headed his direction with my net to land it for him. After releasing it I headed back to my peg to finish sorting my leader, no sooner had I picked up my nippers to tidy up a knot do I hear “I’m in”. Pick up my net and head back over to net a much bigger fish than his 1st, I weighed the fish which came in at 8lbs (after net weight was taken off). I head back to my peg and start fishing, by this point these monsters knew and the game was up. I had follows on the scruffy tiger as I knew they had never seen this before and that was my tactic for this pond! But none would take it and after a few fly changes an hour in, we decided to move over to the other trout lake.

Narborough has several lakes catering to the carp/match anglers as well and you can fly fish these once you have spoken to the shop when you pay your day ticket. There isn’t much that isn’t castable there, if you do coarse fish; make sure you have the correct sized landing net & unhooking mat. The trout lakes are at each end of the fishery, once at the catch/take lake we bumped back into Pete Gosnell who we chatted to earlier while booking in. Pete was with a friend helping him with his casting and yellow dancers was the pattern to use. I however clipped on my scruffy tiger again and on my 1^st cast I could feel the nips and they were chasing it! Wasn’t long before one nailed the fly, I don’t tend to weigh trout and once unhooked; away it went. I lost my 2^nd fish just before the net. Martin was also into the fish with a yellow dancer, but not long before the sun came out and things went quiet. I opted to switch to my Intermediate line and a yellow dancer which saw one more to my net.

Around 1pm we decided to head back to the C&R monster lake and wasn’t long before martin was into another big trout on the same yellow dancer from the previous lake. Pete joined us and things went quiet, yup they knew we were there and not long after that even the big bruisers had stopped cruising past. The sun was out, they were hiding up out the sun somewhere. I moved to a new spot and head a commotion under the platform to see a huge trout shoot out from its shady spot into the open water! We each settled into a spot, by this time I just left my net with Martin; I seldom do well on the C&R lake. I opted for a white blob under an indicator set at 4ft and cast it out and waited, after 30 minuets of not much happening I opted to have a break. I was settled in to watching a tying vid put up by Rodney Wevill on how to tie his Trout sized Scruffy Tiger did I hear a shout from Pete, looked up to see him diving forward, splash and Pete half diving in after his rod! He too was fishing under an indicator, set his rod down by his feet for a monster to take his fly, take off and pull his rod in the water before he could get to it! Thankfully the fish let go of the fly and didn’t drag the rod any further.

We finished off the day with Martin having 7-8 fish on a white snake I tied him & the yellow dancer; most were the big uns from C&R lake and myself at just the 2 on my own tied flies. An enjoyable day to fish somewhere different and meeting Pete while there. Martin and I were using the same Mega High Speed fly line that comes in WF6F to WF10F. I use a WF7F and Martin has the WF8F which made short work of the wind Saturday.