Much of my middle years of fishing were involved with reservoir trout.  This included all the major reservoirs, Blagdaon, Chew, Grafham, Rutland and Draycote   I fished a lot with a good friend Keith who was a company area manager and seemed to have a limitless mileage allowance.   Thanks in no small measure to him we fished all over the place.

This was in the early days of reservoir fishing and the small put and take lakes were just starting up.  The days of Bob Church, Dick Walker, Tom Ivens, Alan Pearson, Peter Cockwill and all the rest.

I did flirt with the small stillwater fisheries for a while such as Avington and Lechlade, but only for a while.,  The whole thing was too artificial and sometimes too easy too.   The day at Lechlade when I had to fetch a wheelbarrow to take the four fish limit back to the car  (45lbs)  was the day I decided enough was enough.

The bigger reservoirs held much more appeal and Blagdon was a particular favourite where the evening rise was something to relish.  I know the fish were still stockies but pound for pound an overwintered rainbows scraps as good as anything.   My best rainbow however was from Chew one evening when a friend and I wanted one more fish for our limit.  We moved down in front of the lodge fishing the dry flies such as Shipmans, Bobs Bits etc.  A fish rose and took the point fly and after a great fight I landed an 8lb 4oz pristine rainbow which I later set up.

At Blagdon I saw a stag swim from the North shore across the lake towards the lodge end of the dam.  It made it and after several attempts jumped a wall and made off.  Also had a rainbow jump into the boat there too.   I was doing a small fishing column for the Bromsgrove Messenger newspaper at one time which allowed me to get a free ticket to fish Rutland on press day before it opened to the public.  I fished down the North Arm and had some nice fish including brownies which were plentiful then. I fished the first three days that followed too. It was great fishing though one day, in spite of my friend Keith being of Navy experience the fog came down and we had to follow the shoreline , huge, to get back to the lodge.   It was also the place where we booked some overnight accommodation near Rutland reservoir.
We fished during the day and late evening found the accommodation.  Nice people but when we asked to show us our room to our consternation they showed us just one room with a double bed.  It was late, there was nowhere else to sleep so - needs must.  I escaped unscathed!!.   Keith also had the nasty habit of shouting out "You did pick those worms up didn't you"  while waiting in the queue to buy our tickets as all the heads whipped round accusingly.  We did mad things like going backwards and forwards to Rutland three days running with very little sleep.  Fishing at  dawn at Grafham from the bank before picking up out boat tickets for the day.

One day after fishing at Rutland we arrived back at his house near Worcester.  As I unpacked my tackle I suddenly realised I was missing a rod.  It was a Loomis 10footer probably one of the best rods at that time and which I made up from blanks for us both.  I realized I had left it in the car park when packing away in the dark.  I was resigned to it's loss but my friend insisted we go back for it which we did.  Heaven only knows what time we got back, without the rod too.
However a call to the lodge the following day revealed it had been handed in and I later retrieved it
thanks to someones honesty.