Thompsons Creek Dam

[foolforjesus]

So my alarm clock didn't wake me up at the intended hour of 3am...I managed to get on the road by 5:45am.

I eventually made it up to the dam at around 8:30am, a little later than anticipated, I even gave my ritual macca's breakfast a miss to save time.

I also had to be heading off at 1:30pm to be back in time for my Brother in law's birthday party, so I had a little under 5 hours of fishing time.

I headed for the west bank of the dam, and quickly realized that fly fishing would be tough due to the pretty strong easterly wind blowing across the dam.

I set up a sinking line, and as the water was pretty murky looking, especially towards the bank, I put on a fairly bright fly.

I had one follow fairly quickly, a good fish too, but didn't connect.

I carried on for an hour or so with the fly rod, tried a few different fly variations with only the one follow earlier.

I switched to my spin rod, and soon had a follow from another good sized fish, which I estimated to be around 6LB.

I read in a post somewhere online, that you really need to vary your retrieve speeds when fishing lures from the bank, as Trout soon pick up a lure that doesn't imitate a real fish.

I must admit, I have become quite used to a steady slow retrieve up at TCD, which seems to work well, but I've noticed I get quite a lot of follows, right up to the bank.

I started to vary my retrieve, with 2 or 3 fast bursts of winds, then back to a slow steady retrieve.

Within minutes, on a fast burst I might add, a rainbow took my lure.

I continued on fishing, both the fly & lure rods for a couple more hours, with another 2 follows, but no more fish in the net.

Its safe to say, I will be varying my retrieve speeds in future when using the lure rod.

Its funny how you can get set in your ways when fishing.

I am still to christen my new fly rod with a fish, but feel confident that next time will be different

Edited January 16, 2012 by foolforjesus