Basic Advice
Despite many people apparently having little difficulty in extracting regular limits, these reservoirs can still outwit the newcomer.
One reason is probably that Walthamstow bears little relation to bank fisheries as referred to in most magazine articles and books. Your typical reservoir fishery has shallow sloping natural banks, with extensive weedbeds. Most of Walthamstow’s bank consists of a steep 20-40 degree slope down to 15-18 feet of water, especially true on the banks of Nos 4 and 5 reservoirs, which are noticeably steeper than those on the East Warwick. Our tactics have more in common with those reserved for the dam areas of traditional reservoirs, only in our case the dam goes all the way round. How does this affect those tactics?
Let’s get one disadvantage out the way first. With no extensive shallows, these reservoirs can take a long time to warm up in the Spring. If you want floating line sport in March and early April, you’re better off looking to smaller fisheries, or reservoirs with shallow areas which are quick to warm up, like Bewl. To do well at Walthamstow this time of year, you’ll have be prepared to fish deep with Boobies, and be aware that the best time might only be a couple of hours around mid-day to mid-afternoon, when fish might move in close up the slope.
The advantage of such depths is that Walthamstow carries on fishing well into the first frosts in January-February. With Thames Water stocking more consistently into November in recent years, these reservoirs are a more reliable prospect at a time when smaller and shallower fisheries are getting too cold and slowing down.
Like all fisheries, Walthamstow has its dog-days in the height of summer. But consider this. Unlike shallow shelving reservoirs, here the bank angler has some chance of reaching deep-lying fish, either with a floater/midge-tip and a heavily leaded point fly, or a DI5, DI7 40+ or shooting head type line and Booby. The model we recommend is the 40+ Expert with the grey running line. It saves you having to make up your own shooting head and the running line is more tangle-free than most types of monofilament backing.
Another advantage is that there are no boats on Walthamstow. When fish do retreat to the depths, they don’t have their numbers steadily reduced by boat anglers. When conditions improve those fish are still available in the same numbers for the bank angler.
While the club’s Autumn League proves the strength of this back-end fishing, our Wednesday Evening Series has shown that it it still possible to extract fish under apparently adverse conditions, and that such conditions can change very quickly.
At the height of the 2004 heat-wave, two Wednesdays of fishing deep with Boobies were followed by an evening of catching on fry patterns just under the surface. Seven days of wet, windy weather had quickly made the top layers the most attractive place for trout.
Another lesson this series has taught us is not to assume that the method or the location you start on is the one that’ll do the business.
Location. Watch how the wind’s been behaving the preceding week. A rough rule of thumb is to fish into the wind (for daphnia-feeders), or with your back to the wind (for buzzer-feeders) while conditions are cold in March-April.
Fish across the wind when conditions are ideal and fish are moving upwind to feed in April-May-June. And fish with your back to the wind at the height of summer in June-July-August where the cooler water will be.
At some stage fry will come into the equation, with fish often seen crashing after them, even when fishing is apparently difficult. You’re better off doing a circuit of the reservoirs to look for moving fish before you start fishing, but but be aware that conditions which suit masses of fry hanging around the edges don’t always last. The 2007 Wednesday Evening Series saw big fry-feeders coming out one week in mid-June. By the next week conditions had changed and those fry had moved out.
Methods. One particularly hard evening a few years ago saw a winning bag taken only after 10 different methods had been tried. These included Buzzers, Crunchers, Pinfry and Minkies on the floater, Boobies on the DI7, with the successful tactics being Minkies on the Clear Intermediate and the roly-poly. 2007 saw a colder summer with long periods of superb fishing to dries. This is not typical, and often we have to be a lot more versatile.
Even with Boobies on the DI7 or DI5 it has become clear there is a big difference between fishing them along or near the bottom, and exploring the mid-water options. Classic Fur & Feather tactics used to be a single large-eyed Booby, 9-12ft leader, retrieved with a moderately fast roly-poly or figure-eight.
For the milder conditions we’ve experienced in the last couple of Decembers, this has only been effective for the first hour or so, after which you’re better off adding another Booby and lengthening your leader to 18-21ft with a dropper 9ft from the point, to be fished with a slow figure-eight. Even then, 2007 saw some people change to a single Booby on a DI3 to follow fish which had moved up even higher.
One problem with medium sinking lines at Walthamstow is the band of weed that grows just beyond the end of the concrete sill about 2 rod-lengths out. Unless you pick your fly out early (and miss out on last-second takes from a following fish) anything faster than an intermediate fished quite shallow, will drag your fly through this grot every time. A floating line and a leaded fly is better, with a couple of droppers too if you can handle them, and more recently we’ve found the new range of midge-tip lines with 3-10ft tips useful for this, as well as helping to get a team of flies down, especially on the steeper banks of Nos 4 and 5 reservoirs in a side wind.
Intermediate lines can be especially useful for fishing big flies like Minkies in an awkward wind. On floater you may need a longish leader to get them down to the right depth, a set-up which is not easy to cast into or across a stiffish breeze. Additionally, a side-drift can push the floating line round, preventing you from getting the fly down. It’s a lot easier to cast and get depth with a shorter leader on an Intermediate. In really awkward conditions a Minkie or Booby on a short 9ft leader and a double taper Intermediate can catch you fish no-one else can reach.
Fly patterns are another way Walthamstow is different. Other fisheries see trout stuffed with midge pupae. Here, they gorge on daphnia with just the occasional midge, at all times of the year. Most of the daphnia they feed on is a greeny olive colour with a touch of orange. It’s no surprise that one of our favourite leaded nymphs is precisely this colour, with a body made from a blend of 75% Green Olive and 25% Hot Orange seal’s fur. When people tell you they caught their fish on a ‘Damsel’ don’t think they were fishing an imitation of a damsel nymph. It’s just a big leaded nymph of the same colour as the food our trout most prefer.
One reason is probably that Walthamstow bears little relation to bank fisheries as referred to in most magazine articles and books. Your typical reservoir fishery has shallow sloping natural banks, with extensive weedbeds. Most of Walthamstow’s bank consists of a steep 20-40 degree slope down to 15-18 feet of water, especially true on the banks of Nos 4 and 5 reservoirs, which are noticeably steeper than those on the East Warwick. Our tactics have more in common with those reserved for the dam areas of traditional reservoirs, only in our case the dam goes all the way round. How does this affect those tactics?
Let’s get one disadvantage out the way first. With no extensive shallows, these reservoirs can take a long time to warm up in the Spring. If you want floating line sport in March and early April, you’re better off looking to smaller fisheries, or reservoirs with shallow areas which are quick to warm up, like Bewl. To do well at Walthamstow this time of year, you’ll have be prepared to fish deep with Boobies, and be aware that the best time might only be a couple of hours around mid-day to mid-afternoon, when fish might move in close up the slope.
The advantage of such depths is that Walthamstow carries on fishing well into the first frosts in January-February. With Thames Water stocking more consistently into November in recent years, these reservoirs are a more reliable prospect at a time when smaller and shallower fisheries are getting too cold and slowing down.
Like all fisheries, Walthamstow has its dog-days in the height of summer. But consider this. Unlike shallow shelving reservoirs, here the bank angler has some chance of reaching deep-lying fish, either with a floater/midge-tip and a heavily leaded point fly, or a DI5, DI7 40+ or shooting head type line and Booby. The model we recommend is the 40+ Expert with the grey running line. It saves you having to make up your own shooting head and the running line is more tangle-free than most types of monofilament backing.
Another advantage is that there are no boats on Walthamstow. When fish do retreat to the depths, they don’t have their numbers steadily reduced by boat anglers. When conditions improve those fish are still available in the same numbers for the bank angler.
While the club’s Autumn League proves the strength of this back-end fishing, our Wednesday Evening Series has shown that it it still possible to extract fish under apparently adverse conditions, and that such conditions can change very quickly.
At the height of the 2004 heat-wave, two Wednesdays of fishing deep with Boobies were followed by an evening of catching on fry patterns just under the surface. Seven days of wet, windy weather had quickly made the top layers the most attractive place for trout.
Another lesson this series has taught us is not to assume that the method or the location you start on is the one that’ll do the business.
Location. Watch how the wind’s been behaving the preceding week. A rough rule of thumb is to fish into the wind (for daphnia-feeders), or with your back to the wind (for buzzer-feeders) while conditions are cold in March-April.
Fish across the wind when conditions are ideal and fish are moving upwind to feed in April-May-June. And fish with your back to the wind at the height of summer in June-July-August where the cooler water will be.
At some stage fry will come into the equation, with fish often seen crashing after them, even when fishing is apparently difficult. You’re better off doing a circuit of the reservoirs to look for moving fish before you start fishing, but but be aware that conditions which suit masses of fry hanging around the edges don’t always last. The 2007 Wednesday Evening Series saw big fry-feeders coming out one week in mid-June. By the next week conditions had changed and those fry had moved out.
Methods. One particularly hard evening a few years ago saw a winning bag taken only after 10 different methods had been tried. These included Buzzers, Crunchers, Pinfry and Minkies on the floater, Boobies on the DI7, with the successful tactics being Minkies on the Clear Intermediate and the roly-poly. 2007 saw a colder summer with long periods of superb fishing to dries. This is not typical, and often we have to be a lot more versatile.
Even with Boobies on the DI7 or DI5 it has become clear there is a big difference between fishing them along or near the bottom, and exploring the mid-water options. Classic Fur & Feather tactics used to be a single large-eyed Booby, 9-12ft leader, retrieved with a moderately fast roly-poly or figure-eight.
For the milder conditions we’ve experienced in the last couple of Decembers, this has only been effective for the first hour or so, after which you’re better off adding another Booby and lengthening your leader to 18-21ft with a dropper 9ft from the point, to be fished with a slow figure-eight. Even then, 2007 saw some people change to a single Booby on a DI3 to follow fish which had moved up even higher.
One problem with medium sinking lines at Walthamstow is the band of weed that grows just beyond the end of the concrete sill about 2 rod-lengths out. Unless you pick your fly out early (and miss out on last-second takes from a following fish) anything faster than an intermediate fished quite shallow, will drag your fly through this grot every time. A floating line and a leaded fly is better, with a couple of droppers too if you can handle them, and more recently we’ve found the new range of midge-tip lines with 3-10ft tips useful for this, as well as helping to get a team of flies down, especially on the steeper banks of Nos 4 and 5 reservoirs in a side wind.
Intermediate lines can be especially useful for fishing big flies like Minkies in an awkward wind. On floater you may need a longish leader to get them down to the right depth, a set-up which is not easy to cast into or across a stiffish breeze. Additionally, a side-drift can push the floating line round, preventing you from getting the fly down. It’s a lot easier to cast and get depth with a shorter leader on an Intermediate. In really awkward conditions a Minkie or Booby on a short 9ft leader and a double taper Intermediate can catch you fish no-one else can reach.
Fly patterns are another way Walthamstow is different. Other fisheries see trout stuffed with midge pupae. Here, they gorge on daphnia with just the occasional midge, at all times of the year. Most of the daphnia they feed on is a greeny olive colour with a touch of orange. It’s no surprise that one of our favourite leaded nymphs is precisely this colour, with a body made from a blend of 75% Green Olive and 25% Hot Orange seal’s fur. When people tell you they caught their fish on a ‘Damsel’ don’t think they were fishing an imitation of a damsel nymph. It’s just a big leaded nymph of the same colour as the food our trout most prefer.
Reservoir 4
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Railway Bank
This long straight bank can provide good sport casting to moving fish in May-June when a North East or East wind encourages wind-lanes to form. A hedge and fence are a fraction too close for comfort along parts of this bank and long casters should watch their back-cast. The culvert at the far West end is a favourite spot but doesn’t always justify the attention it often attracts. Renewal of the grille in this culvert now means that at last there is now an effective barrier to trout escaping into the High Maynard reservoir the other side of the Forest Road. No 4 fished a lot more consistently last season; this could well have been a factor. East Bank The effects of new pipework in the North East corner have yet to be seen, but are an additional feature to this somewhat overlooked bank. No problems with back-cast or access along virtually all of this bank would suggest a mobile approach may be best to intercept travelling fish, although the corners at either end are always favourite spots. Causeway A collection of pipes connecting No 4 with No 5 at the East end are an obvious hot-spot, especially when South West, South or South East winds are pushing daphnia through, or attracting fry. Like the Railway Bank, the right winds blowing along this bank can see fish moving upwind, especially in late April to early June. In less favourable conditions, the first third of the bank from the West end is always worth a try. West Bank Bays and points give this side plenty of features. The South West Corner can often see moving fish in good conditions for dries, with its North Point often a good spot to cover them. Moving fish can also be seen when a ripple-edge develops out from the section of bank above it. Not only did dries work well along here during our Wednesday Evening Series last summer, we also saw fry-feeders feature here during the Autumn Series. The point at the North end of this stretch is another good place to intercept fish, while the North West corner around to the Tower can be a good early season spot, with the corner the other side also worth a few casts before you look further afield. |
North West Corner
North East Corner
West Bank
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Steep Slope
Here’s a view of the culvert at the East end of the Railway bank with the levels down. It gives a good idea of the scale and gradient of the bank on Nos 4 & 5. Steeper than that on the East Warwick, it means that even in the height of summer – or the depths of winter - you can still reach deep water with a reasonable throw with an Expert 40+ DI7, or a heavy leaded nymph, 18-24ft leader and floater. Incidentally, when that picture on the right was snapped, Thames took the opportunity to renew the grille preventing trout escaping into the High Maynard. Low levels revealed extensive mudbanks in this area, some of them covered in zebra mussel shells. For a brief period it was possible to catch mussel-feeding trout on leaded Hare’s Ears fished Czech-nymph style in the current pushing out from the pipes. |
Steep Contours
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Reservoir 5
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Causeway
Any time from late April to early June, if you get overcast conditions and a Light-Moderate wind from East or West, you’ve a good chance of seeing fish moving upwind, even if sometimes they require a decent cast to cover. As with No 4, the pipes and culverts at the far East end are a big attraction, especially in the height of summer where the boil must provide a degree of oxygenation. Early season, though, remember that fish will be following the daphnia. It may be tempting to do as everyone else and fish with your back to the wind, but those with the casting technique and tackle to handle it may well do better turning round and fishing whichever bank has the wind blowing into it. Fish can be as little as 5-10 yards out, gobbling daphnia, and in a far more confident mood than those on the easier banks. First few platforms along from the Shed at the West end have a history of doing well to Booby in the colder months, but our Fur & Feather results often show better fish coming later in the day more towards the middle of the Causeway. East Bank Tricky trees behind you and a snaggy bottom make the North East Corner not one of the most popular spots. Prevailing winds often see this side littered with debris from the two islands, maybe accounting for the sedge hatches in this area. Certainly the twigs and branches we pull out are often covered with stony caddis cases. The best times for sedge emergences can be brief, expect them from mid-May to mid-June, with Grouse-wings and Black Silverhorns some of the species we see. An Invicta seems to work as well as anything for these. You’ll need to find some gaps in the trees behind you to fish from the middle of this bank, but the North point of the South East Bay can be a real hot-spot. High-pressure days in summer with an East or South East wind are one set of conditions where this South East Bay can switch on. You’ll often need to fish deep - either with heavy nymphs on the floater or Booby on the fast-sink - but be patient and you’ll often get fish following the flies right in from the depths and taking close to the edge. South Houses Bank At the right time of year a moderate South West wind gives great conditions for fish moving upwind along the wind lanes coming off the point by the Houses. Keep an eye on your back-cast the nearer you get to the ‘No Fishing Beyond This Point’ sign at the West end of this bank, because the fence behind you suddenly gets a lot closer. Opposite the Island is a good spot, as are the second or third platforms down from the South West Bay. Some of our Fur & Feathers were won in this area, and it still has the potential to throw up a good fish in the colder months, even if other areas may be better for numbers. South West Bay and West Bank Get a long period of winds blowing out of the South West Bay at the height of summer and this can hold a lot of fish, probably drawn not just by lower temperatures but also the extra water fed by the pipes and culverts in this area. Structure that can also hold a lot of fry at the right time of year. The point by the Walnut Trees gives you a lot of coverage if fish are moving, but it’s also a good place to launch your DI5-7 and Boobies. Working up the first half of the West bank are a series of points all of which can be good for buzzers on the floater, Minkies on the intermediate (more fry) or Boobies. Again, the last few swims up the NW Corner have proved popular in the colder months, good for numbers of fish, but sometimes better ones are caught elsewhere. |
Christmas on the Causeway
Caddis Country in North East Corner
Action from South East Bay
Houses Bank from South East Bay
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Looking North along the West Bank