Yesterday Tony told me about some big Brown Trout in the lakes at Little Bognor. I drove down to Fittleworth thinking about the possibility of an encounter with a Monster. I arrived at 11:30am and was relieved to see that the car park was empty, it’s only a small lake and two is a crowd.

I started at the top of the lake where the feeder stream runs in, there were trout rising amongst the debris from the willow trees. I tied on a size 18 Adams and flicked it at Trout that were only twenty feet from the bank. I used a large bushy fern to hide behind.

Several fish looked at the fly but were not interested. I changed the fly but there was no response. I could see the 4lb bs tippet clearly in the surface film, so could the fish. I changed the tippet to 2.5lb bs and cast to rising fish. Nothing. I persevered for about two hours but I couldn’t get a take.

I could see that they were taking buzzers just below the surface. The water had lots of dust and debris on the surface and the hatching buzzers were taking a long time to break through. I tried a size 12 Neoprene Buzzer, a size 12 Red Buzzer and a size 12 Green Buzzer but to no avail. I scaled down to a size 18 Black Buzzer but they were not fooled. I spent another hour with the buzzers but it was hopeless.

There were several fish rising to buzzers just by the overflow so I crept round to the dam end of the lake and hid behind another bush. I had a take on a Black Buzzer but missed it. The fish were underneath the Weeping Willow and they occasionally wandered out into the lake for a feed and then went back under the leaves.

I snipped the hackle off a size 18 Adams so it looked like an emerging buzzer and watched it slowly sink. At 4:00pm I was rewarded with a gentle take and I lifted into the fish. It felt as if I had hooked a snag and I thought ‘Monster‘ but it was only a small fish. I had a quick look around the bottom lake before leaving, there were fish rising but the water was very coloured.

It was a nice day and I worked hard, the fish at Little Bognor are very fussy.