Don't forget: Christmas Gift Vouchers are now available for the new season. Individuals/Families/Groups   click here for details. simply email us and we'll send you a voucher for Christmas. A great day out and learn a new skill for life.

Russell Hill editor of Trout Fisherman Magazine with his very first Salmon.

I always say I should re-brand the word 'fishing' as it conjures up a preconceived misconception:.... J.R.Hartley-types, sitting under an umbrella in the freezing cold,watching a float on a disused canal for hours and hours, drowning worms and maggots, then catching a tiny perch then putting it back!    This couldn't be further from the reality..... active, competitive, fascinating, fun, exciting!  Just look at the faces of these recent guests.

Angie catching her first fish....ever!!

This month's Fulling Mill competition meant all boats were booked on Rutland, so I 'snook' away for a couple of days on the River Nith and managed this lovely fresh salmon....

Thanks to all my guests this month for some really great days out. We caught fish on dry flies and nymphs, truly memorable fishing. Let's hope October brings with it the 'back-end' bonanza that we always look forward to at this time of the year.

The British Summer!!

It didn't rain all the time, we had some fantastic views of the ospreys and some truly stunning sunsets.

I'm putting a few Russian pics here this month, but I can now announce that from the end of September 08 I will be offering an exclusive opportunity for groups and corporate parties to catch Atlantic Salmon in Rutland! Hard to believe but true!! it's a very special place only 75 minutes from London where you can catch your first Salmon...read more here...CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS The only place in the UK where this is possible. An ideal venue for a great fishing adventure!

     Great shot of our local Woodpecker and 1 of the Rutland ospreys. Here's Janet showing how to do it!

...and this comment for Ted & Jan Weekes who came out for the half day adventure...."Hi Rob     Thank you so much for the pictures of our great adventure! It was great to meet you and we had a fantastic few hours and, thanks to your patience, a major result! Think how many hours Ted can fill at the pub with the one that got away and the one that didn’t!" ..... Thanks to all my guests this month, we had some memorable catches and the quality of the fishing has mostly been superb. The trout are now feeding on daphnia, pin fry and sedges, so dry fly has been working occasionally. The amount of small fry in the harbour should mean an 'Autumn Bonanza'...book soon, it should be a good one!!!

Pictures speak louder than words, this is a selection from June with Rutland Fly Fishing Adventures. 

The trout stayed up the North Arm and produced some great catches from the bank here at Barnsdale. The main hotspot was Old Hall Point but if you fished off the road end here, there were lots of fish and some very good ones in amongst them. John Ellis, a regular Barnsdale visitor got his best ever fish from in front of the house and enjoyed his best year yet, well done John, you didn't use a 'dunkeld' all week!

John Ellis with his biggest trout so far!

David Armstrong casts into a hail storm, and catches a bag of fish ready iced!!!

Bob Tolley in particular shared a 'RED LETTER DAY' on the 28th when shared an incredible bag of fish. We landing 10 fish all over a whopping 4 pounds in weight topped off by 6 overwintered beauties up to 5.25 pounds! The 'giveaway' signs are silver flecks down the tail fin, no fat in the stomach cavity and a reel screaming fight on your hands!!! There's nothing quite like a Rutland overwintered Rainbow trout, believe me. It was good to welcome Dave Martin for GoFlyFishingUK this month. We link our businesses so that if he has clients who wish to come to Rutland, they can come with me, and clients who prefer the Southern Chalk streams or the Yorkshire rivers can go with him. Good weather made for a great day it was nice to have some glowing praise from him over my set up here at Rutland.

Dave Martin samples Rutland's Delights and Rob helps freelance journalist Rebecca Corbally catch her first ever trout

Fishing in September and October was dominated by daphnia feeding fish, making Rutland Water challenging for all flyfishermen. However the fish were catchable provided they could be located. We had some good fishing days with some notable big fish, but the longed-for Daddy-Longlegs hatch didn't materialise. It's been a strange season since August, in fact we've had more 'flat calm', sunny than we had in August! Lovely days to be out on a boat on the lake but not conducive to great fishing. I 'escaped' in September and October for some salmon fishing on the River Nith, see Scottish Adventures, and managed 6 fish up to 16lbs in very low water conditions, some were extremely fresh silver salmon!

Hi Rob,  thanks for looking after them so well.   They both returned really enthusiastic although Mark is not really a fisherman he enjoyed it.  Sergey was over the moon, he was very complimentary about you and had already done his research as I had sent him the website link.   He really is a keen fisherman. We will certainly keep this type of enjoyment in mind when arranging training etc as it seems to have been really successful.

Thanks again

B    vice president Europe, NSS Enterprises

Great day mate, thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you.

August sunset from The Lodge

Thankfully I used August to go on my (hopefully) annual trip to the Kola Peninsula in Northern Russia as Rutland continued to fish quite hard throughout most of the month. The fish have been grazing on the 'pin-head' sized Daphnia and as anyone who has been on my course will know, we can't really imitate such a tiny morsel with a fly. The only thing to do is to pull an orange 'blob' through the daphnia blooms or slowly move a nymph such as a green 'daiwl bach' and entice the fish away from their natural preference, just like us:- we can quite happily fill up on vegetable soup, but put a T-bone steak in front of us and we'll have it!!!!  Location and depth are critical at this time. 

There have been some famous names fishing big international competitions this month at Rutland and many of them have struggled, a characteristic of August generally.  Just lately and now, into September, the weather is freshening and the fish are starting to feed on items we can imitate. Buzzers mainly but we should see the first of the daddy-longlegs hatches very soon. The fishing should now steadily improve through September, October and into November.

Dr. Ed Johnson had a great day, taking 3 superb trout up to 4lbs on nymphs and a good day was had with Paul the Polish dentist from Grimsby, we had 3 and lost a few great fish.

July became the 'new August' in that the fish decided to become very tricky and hard to catch. We had some great day's fishing with some great people, but the fishing was notably difficult. Probably due to the constant dropping of barometric pressure and the unusual wet and cold weather. I went to Russia for a fishing 'treat': the finest salmon river in the world, the mighty Kharlovka, but, you guessed it....same there! Tough fishing! I suppose if it was always easy, we wouldn't go? Many thanks to David Freer, Eddie Pipe, Jonathon Shields, David Armes, Rebecca and Russell Compton and the great bunch of 10 guys on the Jason Sturgess Party. We caught some fish and had a terrific time. Special mention must go to Barbara Wright who tried and tried but sadly, the trout didn't oblige, well done Barbara, we did have a super day though! And Earl from Massachusetts USA who's day "was the highlight of the trip", and the 3 Dutch journalists who wanted to catch a fish 'in 20 minutes'... we did our best! The start of August is dour to say the least, but I wait expectantly for the daddy-longlegs to start hatching....watch this space...!!!

June came with a mix of thunder storms and gales with the occasional lovely, warm day. The fishing was interesting to say the least. The early part of the month saw fish taking dries and damsel nymphs, then came the sedges and in the latter part, pin fry. Pin fry feeding fish are notoriously difficult to tempt but despite that, we had some great fishing.

A few highlights came from Tetsuya Tenaka from Hong Kong who returned, this time with his wife to fish with Craig Barr and managed to catch some lovely trout. Unfortunately not as big as on last year's visit, maybe next time Tet?

Rex Jones fished with me for a few days on Rutland and Eyebrook, on the wheelie-boat. A brilliant facility for disabled anglers, I was impressed with the handling of the boats and even more impressed with Rex's fish catching abilities, well done Rex!! Ian Moreland, Ollie Howes, David Wagstaffe, David Baker, Oliver Wells, David Harris, Sam Jones  to name but a few, had great days on the lake. Many first fish were caught, notably Tommy Nicholson and 10 year old Jack Sharpe fishing with his Dad managed his biggest ever fish! 

Brothers Richard and Chris Smith had a great time trying to out-catch each each other, what competition! Brent Taylorson came back in between business trips to New York and Japan to finally catch a lovely Rutland Water trout, and Richard Warrick did well to catch a 'pin fry' feeding trout which gave him a good scrap on a small silver invicta fly. 

We had some good corporate days this month and thanks must go to Karen Lumbus for sticking it out in absolutely awful weather conditions. Shane Mullins and Bill McCosh also had a great day despite torrential rain and gale force winds... you know you've had a day out in a big blow like that!!

Thanks also to Rod Tye and world cup champion Tom Byrne, from Lough Mask in Western Ireland for some very sociable evenings here at the Lodge, and for sharing your massive knowledge of Irish Wet flies. I had a day with my son Alex on the North Arm fishing Irish wets and had a great day, see photo above, and such an enjoyable way of fishing also.

Irish fly tyer extraordinaire, journalist general good guy Rod Tye, World Cup champion Tom Byrne and Trout and Salmon magazine editor Andrew Flitcroft enjoy the 'craic' in Rob's fishing cabin.

I've been so delighted with Rutland Water so far this year. Just like when I first came here 14 years ago, the fish have been feeding on natural insects which we can imitate: Big buzzers; huge olives and even hawthorn flies earlier on! It's the first time in 4 years that the trout have been staying close in, here on the North Arm. I've been staggering down and catching a few on cdc buzzers after making the breakfasts for my B&B guests! All good fish. Not much daphnia about, I think is the clue.

We seem to have had April's weather in May, a month marked by cold biting winds and downpours, but this hasn't stopped the fish feeding voraciously. There have been some memorable catches from Rob's Rutland Flyfishing Adventures this month, and special mentions to John Ellis from the Wirral who had some steady fishing on his own favourite patterns. Andrew Boyd and Ronan from Lough Mask in the West of Ireland had some huge bags of fish and Phil Bryant's party from Scotland had some of the best catches I have ever seen from the lake. They hit 'Hideaway Bay' just at the right time and, fishing buzzers had 2 days of arm wrenching sport with many fish in the 5/6 and 7lb bracket, topped by an enormous grown on Brown trout of THIRTEEN POUNDS caught by Ali Middlemass on a size 8 black buzzer!!!! Well done Ali! A lot of celebrating that week, I can tell you! I was fishing 75 yards from Ali when he hooked the fish, it sounded like someone had dropped a grand piano into the lake when it jumped on it's first of many runs, then followed by Ali's screams...."I've hooked Moby Dick!!!!" This fish, in superb condition is just 1lb less than the all time record from Rutland Water, a magnificent catch.

Thanks to Duncan Harker and Martin Smith, David Scott and Colin Smith, Paul & Richard Johnson, Richard Herring and Graham, Stephen Brown, Nick Cato, Mr. McClardy, Michael Duke and John Aston for their terrific company. John was a successful match fisherman but now he's well and truly hooked on Flyfishing for trout. Also thanks to Sue Oakden who despite the poor fishing on her day, stuck at it valiantly and enjoyed the other 'dimensions' to the sport: close up wildlife spotting, beautiful scenery and a relaxing day on a boat, well done Sue.

The contents of the fish's stomach, buzzers galore!

One of the best things about this job is when one of your guests catches his or her first fish, first trout, or first on a fly. It may be the biggest or the most, or it may be a young lad who catches a fish bigger than he's ever seen before. It's a real pleasure for me, to be a part of that experience. Although we had a mixed month for fishing, it was generally very good and it included a few 'gems' like the aforementioned.

The new season always brings some trepidation. Will it be too windy, like 2006 or too cold. I'm a pretty selfish sort of chap and hoped, upon hoped, that those stout, silver stock fish would stay here, on the North Arm, ideally just outside my Lodge (I wish!). Well, I can report that for the first time in maybe 4 seasons the fish seem to be staying, feeding and growing into classic, battling Rutland Rainbows! I have been down most mornings after making my guests breakfasts, flicking a line off the bank by the house and catching some really nice trout, in the last week they've been taking a 'cul de carnard buzzer' in the surface film, outstanding sport. That's the good news...but to all those valiant anglers I've taken out, battling the cutting easterly winds and the days when it looked like the lake was devoid of fish, well done for keeping at it, that is fishing.

Thanks to all my guests this month. Special mention for Antony Topping and Ed Docx, their competitive spirit, trying to out do each other made it a laugh a minute on the boat. Chris Gadsden persevered through a cold, windy morning until he got it, and caught his first trout on the fly to finish the day! Ian who couldn't believe his eyes when an osprey flew right passed us around 50 yards away. Michael Walker who was casting a 25 yard line after a few hours. And of course Jack Taylorson who outdid his father Brent in style...... I think these pictures speak for themselves!

April's here at last and Rutland Water is open for fishing! The 1st of April arrived with a heavy covering of snow on the ground. A fox and a badger making a snowman in the garden. Well, ok the kids didn't fall for that one either, in fact, I was the fool for not getting out earlier. It was a perfect Spring day with a gentle North West breeze. It seemed like the blackthorn blossom just came out today and there was that 'Spring feel' about it all. 

Any breeze with a bit of North in it is perfect for fishing off 'Rob's Rock' in front of the house, and luckily the world and his brother were packed barbour to gore-tex down at the main basin around Stockie Bay and Whitwell Creek, leaving me to stroll down and winkle out 6 nice rainbows in a couple of hours. Good fish too!

The warm day produced hatches of buzzers and my fish were taken on bloodworm and buzzer imitations. A good sign for the new season ahead     ?