Loch Leven, evening session, 29th July.
(click on flies for photos)
Having had rubbish weather for our last Leven outing, we had had loads of cracking good fishing weather since then, and hopes were high in the lead up to this outing. Oh dear, we should have guessed. Strong westerly wind and bright sunshine until the sun went down, at which point it turned bloomin' cold. At least the wind dropped later, giving us a half chance. We needed it too, as early on there was very little doing, no matter how deep we tried going.
Only 4 rods weighed in more than one fish, although many small brownies were returned. One of those rods took his fish on a Diawl Bach (sorry, didn't catch where). The other 3 rods were in different boats, but all were drifting from Scart Isle outwards and upwards towards the north deeps/north shore direction (you know the way a westerly bends as it goes round the corner!).
Rod two took his 2 fish very late on to a neutral density suspender buzzer, a type of dressing that has been taking a lot of fish at Leven (many of the fish taken in the Hardy competition the week before fell for them). Most were probably a little prettier than Dougie's successful claret one (OK, they do lose their looks when they've caught one or two fish).
The other 2 rods had a frantic half hour of sport ca 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. One was figure-of-eighting a set of Shipman's buzzers, with claret and fiery brown the stand-outs, keeping 3 of 6 brownies landed, for 4 lb. Top rod on the night was Jimmy M who weighed in 4 brownies for 7 lb with 2 others returned. Jimmy was fishing snatcher type buzzer pupes, when a need to pull his line out of the way quickly resulted in a take. This put him onto the method. Strip with buzzers! Doing it deliberately from that point on brought him his bag. Jimmy's stand out colour was claret yet again.
(Sorry if the latest flies are a bit dark -- I try to avoid artificial light -- so colours are as they should be -- and it's a particularly dingy evening tonight!)
The club's return for 20 rods was 5 rainbows for 10 lb 14.5 oz, plus 11 browns for 18 lb 4.5 oz, and all brownies under 12 inches returned (quite a few).
