Largely due to holidays, a rather depleted group of 4 members and 2 guests met at Tringford Lake on a lovely sunny morning, to be met by the smell of bacon and the sizzling of sausages, the usual greeting from Head Bailiff Bob Menzies and his cheerful band of helpers.
With our appetites duly satisfied we returned to the car park to tackle up before heading for the rowing punts that make this different from our normal bank fishing. Guests Granville and Chris Ainley took one boat, Alan Badcock and Tony Spicer the second, while Gerry Overy and I shared a boat.
It took a bit of getting used to rowing these punts because of their width but with Gerry raising arms windmill fashion to point me in the right direction, we made some progress towards the middle of the lake, where we dropped anchor. Tringford is actually 1 of a number of reservoirs supplying drinking water and is fed from the Grand Union Canal. The water was crystal clear and the bottom was very visible, with only a slight ripple on the surface in the light breeze.
The first excitement came to Gerry in the form of a 3” long Perch, not at all what we wanted but a beautiful looking fish nonetheless. Unfortunately this set the pattern for the rest of the day and despite changing flies regularly, type of line once and rowing to other spots several times we could not get a take from the elusive trout.
Lunch was traditional Tringford with smoked salmon and egg sandwiches, a huge slab of pork and egg pie plus all the trimmings, followed by a selection of cheeses and grapes and washed down with a choice of beverages.
After almost clearing the spread, we returned to our punts for much of the same action as the morning. It was clear that the other two boats had been more successful with each angler catching trout and the final tally was Granville 2, Chris 1, Alan 3, Tony 2 whilst Gerry had 6 Perch of varying sizes and all I could manage was a 2” Perch!
We packed up just as the first spots of rain were felt having had a very enjoyable day and a great thanks go to Bob Menzies and crew for making us feel so welcome.