The Ballo, day session, 18 August

The weather forecast that predicted a hooly was thankfully laughably wrong.  We started off with cracking conditions, very dull, with a light NE breeze.  But, just as the fish started to rise, it started to rain, and that put them down.  Having started off with dry fly (usually the best bet at Ballo) you now needed a pulling rod set up while the rain was on.  Of course, as it is now chucking it down, the last thing you feel like doing is getting everything soaked while you put up a pulling rod.  So, the rain goes off, and that is when you should put up a pulling rod, ready for next time, but of course you don't because you are busy looking for the fish starting to show.  And, start to show they do, and you start to get somewhere, then the rain comes on and puts them down!  And you should have a pulling rod to go to, but you don't...

The bailiffs reported that many anglers had been reporting fish rising and going for their flies but with no connection: the dreaded fresh-air shot, as we call it when we are fishing dries.  And in due course everyone came off at the end of the day reporting having had loads of offers to dries, but having fresh-aired the vast majority.

We did have success.  Alan M was getting the fresh airies to a half-hog and changed it for a hare's ear hopper, being rewarded with half a dozen rainbows.  Alan H had 5 rainbows and a returned brownie to hoppers and an orange lure.  Ken Mac and I fished dries all day and had success with half-hog (size 12) and various hoppers, including this black variant (size 10).  We had some from covers, some "out-the-blue" static, and, when the rain was at its worst, some from figure-of-eighting the dries.

The fish were all over the reservoir, were high in the water, and were there for the catching.  We got the impression that fly size and profile was not the issue, as we were getting them to take size 10 hoppers.   We wondered if it was that old nylon visibility thing again.  Our fresh-air shots were nearly all out the blue jobs.  If you got over a rise quickly, it was usually keen and wasn't a freshie.  Perhaps these were fish up high in the water, lying horizontal and not seeing the nylon against the background of the water.  Added to which you were not giving them time to scrutinise the nylon. The fresh air shots were coming from fish with time on their hands and the chance to see the nylon against the sky on their way up for a look.  Maybe?  Who knows, but one further point supporting this idea was that in the absence of a pulling rod, we just figure-of-eighted our dries when the rain was too fierce for surface action, and, with being on fine nylon, we seemed to score better than those having a pull on courser stuff.

Spoonings revealed mostly shucks: sedge and lake olives, with the odd adult sedge, sedge pupa, beetle and stickleback thrown in.  We saw odd fish attacking the sticklebacks down the home shore.

The club's total for 14 rods was 29 fish for 42 lb 6 oz, with 15 returned.