A Cast That Covers It All

Snowbee’s Simon Kidd heads to Burrator Reservoir where he employs a tactic that covers all the depths to tempt its stubborn summer residents.

- Simon Kidd

We’ve had a great spring and terrific buzzer season, followed by some epic dry fly and midge-tip fishing. However, the warm water from the early sunny summer days started to take its toll in July and August and the fishing slowed down. It often can at this time of year but I had the chance to visit and fish the picturesque Burrator Reservoir on the southern slopes of Dartmoor, with its wooded margins and granite peaks of Sheepstor and others surrounding it. The South West Lakes Trust runs the amenity. It is steadily stocked throughout the season with a good head of brown, rainbow and blue trout.

Rain, Rain, Rain…

I arrived to find the prospect of ‘millionaire-style fishing’ because, to my surprise, we had the place to ourselves. My cricketing friend Matt Hunt, a keen angler who admits to being a novice when it comes to boat angling, joined me.

After a few days of showers the lake had filled a little with fresh water and while I didn’t register the temperature, the water didn’t feel as warm as some places I’d fished recently.

Burrator has the reputation of being the fastest filling lake in the country too and, given its size and location, that is probably no great surprise. The water level was surprisingly high for this time of year, indicating we had received plenty of rain runoff from the moor recently. This does make the bank access for fishing quite difficult and can turn the water quite acidic.

These fish don’t really like that change. The northerly wind was gusting to 22mph and with a storm threatening and air temperature plummeting these were certainly far from ideal fishing conditions for August!

On arrival at the boat jetty there were further indications of the recent rise in water level. It was a good job we had the chesties in the car.