It would be a month before I could fish in Sussex again. I arrived at the lakes at 11:30am, in time for the noon mayfly hatch. I had the lakes to myself and I planned to fish into the evening. The cold north wind sent clouds racing across the South Downs and ruffled the surface of the water. The plan was simple, fish into the wind with a mayfly nymph. The conditions were similar to my last visit but the wind was stronger. Mayfly were hatching and in the absence of any birds, damsel flies were seizing them in mid air. I chose the Sage #3 rather than the Hardy #4 which was not logical but I prefer the action. I promised not to overload it !

At Great Springs the resident grass snake slithered off the bank into the undergrowth, it had detected me from twenty yards away. The trout occasionally swirled on the surface, selecting emerging mayfly from the tree debris being blown across the lake. My mayfly nymph drifted about a foot below the surface, dragged by the arc of the fly line. It was ignored. I had a sharp pluck at a leaded GRHE fished a little deeper but after ninety minutes without a take I moved to Little Springs.

The smaller lake was more sheltered and the mature trees along both banks channelled the wind straight down the centre of the lake. The clouds thinned and the bright sunlight brought on a good hatch of mayfly. Fish began swirling at distance and two big trout patrolled the marginal weeds only a couple of rod lengths away. I started with a nymph but quickly changed to a dry fly. The first fish took an amber mayfly with a partridge hackle. The fly was bedraggled and would no longer float. I only had four French Partridge mayflies in my box. I caught fish on three before the hatch petered out.

Poppies along the headland at Stag Park

I had lunch on a seat beside the lake before returning to Great Springs. A trout took an amber mayfly nymph just under the surface and I decided to stop fishing, five trout was plenty. The original plan, to fish a nymph into the wind, had changed to static dry fly, I probably should have changed tactics sooner. The long rod had performed perfectly, all except two takes had resulted in trout landed.

Another member arrived as I was packing up and had a 3lb 8oz trout from Little Springs. Where was everybody ? It was a beautiful, sunny summers day, the fish were rising and the lakes had never looked better. Strange.