NEWS – all categories

Here’s a good photograph sent in by Dave Johns. It shows a Demoiselle fly eating what looks like a stonefly (two tails?) beside the Dart.

Just posted on the Photo Galleries page, some photos from member David Marles Showing a Dipper collecting food and this great shot of it feeding its young. Also a couple of good shots of a Grey Wagtail. (Full size pics in gallery)

You may remember the 4½ lbs brown trout caught by Luke’s young son Ruben while fishing for salmon with his dad back in March.

More recently, in the first week of September, Ruben caught his first fly-caught sea trout at night.

Caught on an up-river beat, the fish had been in for a couple of months and weighed 1¾ lbs.

Robin Thorn had a good night on Friday on an up-river beat. The Sea Trout pictured was a good 30 ins long, estimated at 8 or 9 pounds.

Robin also had one of 2.5 lbs and two of 4 lbs in the same session.

Our fishing has been closed to visitors since the beginning of lockdown. Previous to this, tickets were available from the Dartmoor Lodge Hotel. We are pleased to say that the Dartmoor lodge will be reopening on the 13th July, when visitors tickets will again be available.

Since fishing restarted last month, TWP has fished reasonably well, with a decent number of sea trout caught up to 5 or 6 pounds.

In May, about 400 fish passed through the fish counter, mainly sea trout. In June about 150 had been counted at the last check.

Of course the fishing in TWP will now tail off as the fish move upstream.

Oddly, given their prevalence over the past few years, no sea lice have been seen on fish and no fish with saprolegnia fungus infestations have been reported. Could this be some effect of lockdown or is it just coincidence?

This lovely approx 2lbs brownie was caught by member Ben Beardsworth just above Abbotsmead recently. The image is a bit dark, as the photo was taken in crepuscular light.

Ben tempted the fish with a size 14 BWO and says it was quite an acrobatic character, leaping about 3 feet in the air.