Our first fish on a fly - Rudd

Ah, I remember what we did on Monday now. We went for an explore into the center of the island, mainly to find where to get day tickets for the massive man made reservior Llyn Alaw.

We’d not really been in this area before and I was amazed at just how rugged it is in the open spaces. We kept seeing a Buzzard on telegraph posts in front of us but no matter how sneaky we were I couldn’t get a good shot of it.

We arrived after paying at the visitor centre car park and made our way over to the opposite side of the lake and set up our 6 weight fly rods with floating line and a few flies that looked like the bugs in the lake – I’m sure they have proper names but I’ve no idea what they were (the flies or bugs). We’d learned on Monday from another angler that it fishes best from 8pm onwards so the plan was to go from about 7:30 till 10pm.

After about an hour and a half of what I’d like to think of as casting practice (catching trees, my hat, etc.) the weather payed us a little visit and it hammered it down for a good half hour. Thankfully we were wearing waders and waterproofs tops so it didn’t matter that much but it was odd standing in a lake, in the dimming light, in the rain.

Finally the Buzzard sat still

Not long after the rain stopped I heard Wendy yelling from a bit further down the lake. I’m sure they could here her all the way up to Holyhead.

Rushing back to shore, or as ‘rushing’ as is possible in waders, I grabbed the camera and dashed over to grab a picture of her prize.

Not a trout but a small Rudd (or Roach – I think it’s a Rudd). Did it matter to Wendy that it wasn’t our target species for the evening? Did it hell! This was our first ever fly caught fish and although the weather had been a bit pants we were elated.

Happy with our first successful catch we made our way back to the cottage for a well earned brew.

We drove up that way a few more times in the couple of weeks we stayed on Anglesey but the best photo I could get of the Buzzard is still not very good – but at least I got him.