We'd walked passed Barnsfold Waters many times taking while taking Mum and Dads dogs for walks but never fished there before so it was all new to us. There are two lakes, approx. 11 acres each with easy access round each one with plenty of room behind to help in casting. After a quick look round and booking in we settled on the furthest lake and set up in a corner where there was a little protection from the breeze by the surrounding trees - we're not really good enough to be fly fishing with much wind.
I tied on a hook size 14 green goldhead damsel imitation which  which, as it's name suggests, has a gold bead at the eye end of the hook to help it sink and after a few practice casts shot the line into the lake about 30 feet. Letting the 9 foot fluorocarbon sinks with the weight of the fly I slowly retrieved the small damsel imitation, hopefully making it look like a damsel fly nymph swimming along the bottom of the lake.
On the third retrieve I felt the fly catch onto something and thought I'd managed to catch on a rock on the bottom but no, damn me if the 'rock' didn't start swimming away.
There was definitely a fish one and after a few heart stopping moments I could see it through the water, a lovely Brown Trout - my first ever! With heart thumping I shouted over to Wendy to get the net and after a few more seconds I landed it - a beautiful fish of about 2 pounds in weight which after a quick photo was released to fight another day.
After about an hour we spotted fish rising to take reel flies off the surface of the lake so switched to dry fly imitations but they weren't having it. We got a few to follow the lures and Wendy almost had one for it to turn away at the last moment but that first fish was the only one of the evening. We had a few other bits and pieces to do and as we didn't have a huge selection of dries and little clue on how to fish them we left for home at about 8pm.
Would we come back? You're damn right we would Barnsfold Waters isn't as pretty as our local patch Mere Beck and it is a bit intimating with the size of the lakes but we saw a lot more fish and anywhere where you catch your first of a species using a new method will always be special - oh yes, we'll be back.
Well Done on the Brownie 