Nestling under the South Downs, just north of Eastbourne, Arlington reservoir is one of my favourite venues to fish during the spring, my love affair with this water started several years ago and what brings me back time and again? The hard fighting rainbows that rise freely to the abundant fly life that exists here.

On my recent visit it was a bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky beautiful for a sun tan but far from ideal for trout fishing. The water had warmed over the preceding few days so the fish had become active and tracking them down would be our most difficult problem to solve.

Eastwell Park

Brian Harris my boat partner for the day, and I started our drifts in the west corner of the dam hoping that there might be some terrestrial insects being blown onto the water, as had been the case the previous week, in the form of black beetles. However, on this occasion we were out of luck and the possibility of some early Hawthorns also failed to materialise, so after two short drifts sussing out the area we decided to drop anchor to explore the possibility of the fish feeding deeper on buzzers or daphnia.

Brian was first into action with a fish taken on a Diawl Bach fished on his ‘Lee Wulff’ Predator Sink-tip line, this indicated that the fish were slightly deeper than we had hoped, a quick change to a Intermediate ‘polyleader’ allowed my team of nymphs to fish a little deeper and I caught two super little rainbows of about 1lb 8oz each before our takes dried up.

Eastwell Park

It pays to be impatient at this time of year so if you lose contact with the fish be prepared to move.

After a break for lunch we commenced our search on the downwind bank close to the fishing lodge and as no one was bank fishing this area we were able to fish very tight into the bank. This proved to be a good decision as we both caught fish on nymphs but we both found it necessary to have a weighted point fly to add that extra bit of depth and control over our flies as the boat swung around on the anchor.

Again we lost contact with the fish so our final move saw us fishing the more sheltered area by the nature reserve, the trees here had the potential to provide the hoped for terrestrials and we had been informed by other anglers that there were plenty of fish holding close to the bank.

Every now and again you make the right decisions and I changed my set up “just at the right time” after a fish tried to grab Brian’s point fly on the lift off, Eastwell Park

maybe these fish were not as deep as we thought? Off came the weighted point fly and off with the ‘Polyleader’ my team of small Diawl Bachs were now retrieved just under the surface with a figure eight retrieve, three fish caught in quick succession saw me change again this time to dries to catch my last fish as by now we could see plenty of fish swimming up-wind towards us.

Following on from my success fishing the flies shallower, Brian by now had switched to a floating line in combination with small nymphs and wets including his ever faithful Kate McLaren on the top dropper.

Immediately this change of tact paid dividends as the fish were swirling and producing bow waves and finally several fish to complete his bag.

What a great day, Arlington does it again!

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