How to approach fishing Roadford lake.

Fishing for Brown trout on Roadford lake throughout the season 15^th March to 15^th October, I rarely change tactics and flies, I like to keep things simple.

Set up.

Rod of choice 9ft 5wt with a reel loaded with a good amount of backing, I tend to use full floating fly line with a 9ft tapered leader with 4ft 8lb tippet. I only ever fish a maximum of 2 flies, if fishing a larger lure fly only 1 fly.

Fly patterns of choice

Lures: Black Tadpole, Mini Scruffy Tiger, Humongous

Wets: Black Pennel, Black & Peacock Spider, Blue Zulu, Soldier Palmer

Dries: Black Beetle, Bobs Bits, Ginger Hopper

Tactics.

Early season, March till June.

I love to fish the water at this time of the year, water levels will be high but you can find areas to fish, It might be a case of starting at Wortha and ending up at Grinnacombe on the opposite bank, the secret of success no matter what time of the year you fish it, is to cover water, keep on the move.

Days are still short, but my preference is to fish Early morning or later afternoon, giving the middle of the day a miss, March and early April will see fishing continue well throughout the day, brighter days will see the fishing become harder around mid-day.

The days not to miss are the ones when you can’t be bothered, hard rain and wind, these days will produce fish and good fish.

With plenty of chop on the water it would be a beaded Blue Zulu on the point and a Soldier Palmer on the dropper every time.

Approach the water and start close in and fan your cast out working at an angle and cover the area of water in front of you and then move on a few steps and repeat.

The nearer we get to darkness and the end of the day, then I switch to a large lure fly, same casting as above, the bigger fry feeders come in close as the light fades and the results can be very good.

Mid-June till September.

The water levels will now have started to drop, giving way to large areas of bank to fish.

The days are longer and I would always opt for first light and the morning or late afternoon till dark.

We have the bonus of a few fish rising and coming to the dries, keep this simple with patterns mentioned, the fly life will be being blown onto the water and beetles and hoppers work well.

On the warmer days with clear water, I tend to drop back a couple sizes with my flies, instead of 10,12s maybe 14,16s and extend my leader to 16ft.

September till end of season.

This is probably the most productive time of year, days staring to shorten and fish feeding hard pre spawning.

It’s often-evening sessions until dark fishing a single larger lure fly like the humongous that will get results with larger fry feeders, but all methods will get results, the wetter windy days still my preference.

Roadford offer many different opportunities from the bank, you have deeper drop offs at the damn end of the lake, many inlets like Wortha and also shaded tree lined banks like Davey’s bank.

Perch

 

Talk to most anglers about Roadford and you can be pretty sure to here "Aah those perch". Let’s face it they can be a nuisance at times, particularly in the warmer months, but all is not lost. Firstly, they are rarely present in any real numbers in the shallow water until mid-May, so for the first couple of months of the season they really aren`t much of an issue. Once again as the water cools in the Autumn, the perch seem to retreat to the deeper water, leaving the shallower waters to the trout, and the late season sport at Roadford can be superb. 

 

Ok, so what to do in between those times. A couple of observations. Firstly, the perch generally do seem to prefer the calmer waters. Happily, the trout love the rougher stuff, so fishing areas where there`s a good wave on the water can help you avoid the worst of the perch shoals. You`ll almost certainly still catch some perch but hopefully find a few trout as well.

 

Secondly whilst any fly sub surface seems fair game to perch, fishing dry flies is pretty much a perch proof method.

 

Fishable Bank

 

In recent years fishable bank at Roadford when the lake is full has been at a premium, with an awful lot of the bank unfishable. Things change when the level drops to around 85% or so, and then with the reduced water levels, all the bank becomes fishable.

 

SWLT have recognised the problem and during the close season work has started to clear and maintain the banks around the lake. There are now good areas of fishable bank at North Shop, Big Oaks, Grinnacombe, South Wortha and Davey`s Bank. There are also smaller areas along the South Shop and South Gaddacombe Inlets which can be fished when the lake`s full.

 

This is an ongoing process, and plans are afoot to not only maintain the fishable bank each year, but to further clear additional areas.

Many anglers are daunted by Roadford’s size and often give it a miss, but if you break it down into sections, coupled with easier access point like Gaddacombe or Grinnacombe there really isn’t anything to be daunted about.

Also, of the three main South West Lakes Brown Trout waters there has been a high ratio of wild resident fish caught compared to stockies and a real chance of 3lb plus wild fish.

There are many other tactics and fly patterns that will work, but these are my preferred choices and have regularly got results.

The main thing is to get out there and give it a go, this really is one of the best Brown Trout waters in the Southwest and deserves some attention.

Good luck all.