Everything we know about this water,
written down by the people who keep it.
Field notes from the keepers, essays from old guests, month-by-month fly patterns, and the letters readers kindly send us back.
Reading the water at dawn
The first hour on the lake is not about casting. It’s about noticing. Where the mist sits lowest, where the swallows are feeding, where the herons haven’t bothered to move. Every morning tells you where the fish are before you ever wet a line.
Read in full →Why we use barbless hooks
A barbless hook lands less damage and slips out with a single turn. For a lake that lives by catch-and-release, it is not a style choice — it is the whole point. We sharpen them weekly on a coarse stone in the workshop.
Read in full →Keeping a catch book, properly
Every fish deserves a small ceremony: where it was, what fly it took, how it fought, and how quickly it swam off. The book is not a trophy cabinet. It is a way of paying attention — and of teaching the next keeper what this lake knows.
Read in full →Wind, water and the lost cast
On days when the wind is wrong, most anglers walk back to the boathouse. The old keepers used to say that is exactly when you learn to cast. I have never believed them — but I have begun to see what they meant.
Read in full →What the mayfly is telling you
For two weeks in late May the lake becomes a different animal. Dry-fly fishing at its most forgiving and most unforgiving, all at once. Match the hatch if you must, but better — watch them for an hour before you cast.
Read in full →Your first session: a quiet checklist
What to wear, how to greet the keeper, why we ask you to put your phone in the boathouse, and the single piece of advice that makes every new angler’s first morning better.
Read in full →A year of fly patterns, ordered by the month we recommend them. The list comes from the house journal — kept since 1971 — and is updated every autumn after the keepers compare notes.
Dark Olive Klinkhammer
Size #14Fished dry during the first olive hatches. The keepers tie these in December by the fire.
Hare’s Ear Nymph
Size #12–16The universal pattern. Fish it slow, a few feet down, where the brown trout hold close to the banks.
Northbank Mayfly
Size #10Our house pattern, tied by Iris. Claret hackle, CDC wing. Only effective for twelve days in May — and entirely magical during them.
Sedge Pupa
Size #14Evening fishing, just under the surface. Use the rising swallows to tell you when the sedges are coming off.
Damsel Nymph
Size #10Deep water, slow figure-of-eight retrieve. Pike notice them too — check your tippet.
Black Hopper
Size #12When the bracken is full of grasshoppers, trout remember. A late-summer favourite.
Pheasant Tail Nymph
Size #14–18The lake cools, fish move deeper. This pattern carries a whole autumn.
Muddler Minnow
Size #8Pike season. A big, brown, buoyant pattern for the short, fierce takes of autumn.
House flies are tied by the keepers over winter and kept in the boathouse — your guide will open the tin.
Ask about flies →I came to Northbank after the hardest year of my life. I caught very little, and it did not matter. What I caught was a way of being quiet again. Thank you. — M.
We have been coming for eleven years. The lake changes very little, which is exactly why we return. Tell Alastair the whisky this year was extraordinary, and that he still owes us a rematch at chess.
The weekend felt, if I may say so, almost ecclesiastical. A lake can be a sacrament in the right hands. Yours are.
My father taught me to fish on a canal at five. Forty-one years later, at Northbank, I caught a wild brown trout and cried like a child. The keeper pretended not to notice, which was, I think, the whole point.
Three small habits that make every session better.
Arrive before the keeper
The fifteen minutes before the session begins are when the lake shows you what it will be today. Stand on the jetty. Don’t check your phone. Watch the water.
Tie one fly on beforehand
Not a strategic choice — a practical one. It lets you start casting while your guide is still pouring coffee, and makes the morning feel yours from the first minute.
Stop before you’re tired
Three hours is the right length for a reason. Leave wanting more rather than less. The water will still be here when you come back.
A longer read, sent about once a month.
Slower pieces from the keepers and the occasional guest writer. No promotions, no noise — one good essay, printed neatly on paper if you prefer (we still post them to subscribers twice a year).