Fluff chucking on Chew Thursday 30th August

As mention in my previous post I had planned to go fly fishing for a late afternoon evening session with Dan from Cadbury Angling. I was meant to recieve a call from him around lunchtime confirming that it was still on. 13:15 ish and no call so phoned his mobile and it went straight to voice message, a quick call to John at Cadbury suggested he was going. I made myself a decent lunch and loaded the car up ready for the off around 15:00. At around the same time I had a message from Dan saying he was not going due to picking up some kind of flu bug. A quick decision saw me get on the lap top and check out if a singleton boat was possible on Chew, this was soon folowed by a call to the lodge and I booked a boat, £23 for 16:00 - 20:00. I arrived dead on 16:00 and was out in the boat 10 mins later. I could see a few boats down in the bay immediately below the lodge and thought that'll do for me. I started off right down the bottom end and just drifted within 10 mins I had my first pull on what I think was the orange gold headed lure, I had a couple of nymph's further up the 18 foot leader. The wind was quite strong and kept pushing me into a weeded area which meant I had to start up the engine again. Across on the lodge bank the boats that were there were protected from the win by the trees and didn't seem to move much. I was soon across which was much better in terms of drift and fly presentation. No one was catching around me, the about 17:30 the boat further up the bank had 2 in quick succession, I also saw a few fish move on the surface but the sun was still quite bright. A wind knot made me replace the leader and I only put on 2 flies this time but extended the leader by 2 foot. On the end was a red diawl bach

and further up was a green diawl back
Both on size 14 hooks.

Its amazing casting these small flies into some 1,200 acres that you can catch at all.

I decided to do a very slow retrieve as I guessed most of the fish were down deep, I had another pull but missed it, I still haven't got the hang of the strike when fly fishing. 20 mins later another pull and managed to hit it this time. A real craker of a fish, 5 mins later he was in the boat and knocked on the head a really good fish.
Back out and nothing for about 20 mins the another pull, did  not connect, same again back out hit a fish this time but came off half way to the boat.
19:50 I headed back in, the boats had to be tied up by 20:00. I weighed my fish at the lodge, 4lb 4oz, pic taken below in my kitchen just before it was cleaned and put in the freezer.

No matched scheduled for the weekend so not sure if I will go out orn not, the following week we have a club match at Shiplake. I might go back on the Kenn for a few hours if I go out at all. It's been a good week off work.