May has been an excellent month for buzzer fishing on the Midlands reservoirs from both bank and boat, with a floating fly line and three fly leader. Fishing either straight line early on, washing line when the water warms up and the trout are in the upper water column, or under the bung when it’s flat calm or the water has recently been heavily fished.
My line of choice for all three of these methods is Edge Fluorocarbon Pure in 7.6lb breaking strain / 0.25 diameter. Because it is pure fluorocarbon throughout, it can be degreased with fuller’s earth or similar without reducing any of its properties, unlike fluorocarbon coated line. I’ve been delighted using Edge Fluorocarbon Pure for the last two seasons. As we know, a big part of fishing is having confidence, and if you are confident in your set-up you will always fish better than if you’re not!
When making up a leader with droppers, the knots are crucial as they are the weakest points in the set-up. Over the years, I’ve found 3 turn grinner knots are the strongest for forming the droppers. I feed the upper leader, i.e. the piece nearest to the fly line, through the gap between the two knots, wet and slowly tighten the leader, wet again and slowly pull the dropper tight. The dropper should now be at 90 degrees to the leader. The dropper should ALWAYS be formed by using the upper leader / nearest the fly line because if the knot does happen to fail, you will still be in contact with the fish.
I attach the made-up Edge leader to a Rio Tapered Leader with a small Orvis Leader Ring using a 5 turn grinner knot. Always wet your knots before tightening, tighten slowly and if tightening to a small leader ring I find fishery water is much colder than saliva and helps to avoid the leader curling near the ring. If I am joining the made-up Edge leader direct to a fly line with a loop, then I use a loop-to-loop connection with an overhand loop on the leader.
Fishing Farmoor 2 Reservoir from the bank, my two best rainbows this May were 5lb and 6lb, with the leader and knots all holding strong for these superb over wintered fish.
Then on two consecutive boat trips a week apart on Draycote Reservoir I caught 20 on the first trip and then the first 5 rainbows out of a bag of 16 a week later …. ON THE SAME LEADER! This included a couple of double hook-ups (each time only one fish was landed, the other shed the hook before I could net it). I started with 12” droppers and eventually after a few fly changes I was down to 3” droppers. A new leader was then necessary before I could change flies again, which I did before catching the next 11 fish to finish the day with a bag of 16 fish.
By using buzzers rather than lures or blobs in May and fishing away from the recently stocked areas we managed to catch mostly grown on fish from earlier stockings, including this magnificent resident rainbow estimated at 7 1/2 to 8 lbs from Draycote, caught by my boat partner Mike – his new personal best.
Apart from the odd wind knot caused by my casting, which can usually be undone with a couple of pins, the Edge Fluorocarbon Pure with the leader and droppers tied as I’ve described seems to tangle far less than other line I’ve used. I now use it exclusively for all my nymph fishing and step up to the 9.6 lb breaking strain / 0.30 diameter when I’m pulling lures early season or fishing a single hook tube fly for fry feeders later in the season. Oh, and Edge Fluorocarbon Pure is also excellent for big commercial carp on the bomb, feeder or method!
Along with a few more successful trips, it has once again been a joy to fish the buzzers among the swifts and swallows, to the sound of the cuckoo during the month of May, with all fish safely returned to grow on and fight another day.
