Heather flies on the wing at Llyn Du-bach

I ventured out to Llyn Du-bâch on Sunday. While the wind was cool and from the north east, the sun had finally made an appearance and I hoped that the sun would trump the cold wind and get the insect life moving. The walk in up the inclined lines looked promising with crane flies, heather moths and stoneflies all on the wing. When I arrived at Du-bâch I noted that the heather flies (Bibio pomonae) were on the wing in small numbers and got pretty excited about the prospect of a good days fishing. The last time I had fished the bongoch at Llynnau Gamallt the fishing had been extraordinary, almost as good as fishing the mayfly hatch.

Most of the flowering heather was on the down wind side of the lake so I wasn’t sure if the flies would be blowing onto the lake. I searched the margins and indeed there were a few flies trapped in the surface film drifting into the margins. The sound of splashes confirmed the trout were taking them off of the surface. Surveying the scene and making a fly change I also noticed that the olives were also sporadically hatching and sailing across the water to waiting trout. I tackled up with two different foam heather flies and a yellow owl shuttlecock emerger.

The problem was that it was very bright as the sun was out with little cloud and the wind was below 5 mph and the first 20 – 30m of water along the lake edge was like glass and I could see all the way to the bottom of the llyn. The trout were feeding along the edge of the ripple out of range of my cast. This wasn’t a great situation, the entomology stars were aligned in my favour but the weather stars were against me.

On my third or fourth cast I had a lazy splash at a foam imitation of a heather fly but not a firm take. I had one other splashy half hearted inspection of the other foam fly an hour later and that was the sum total of the action. Hopefully have better luck this weekend.

Tight lines

Greg