Loch Leven, evening session, 14 July

A bit bright!  An all too familiar sight on Leven...

Hopes were high leaving Edinburgh, as they often are!  This time we were really going to get perfect conditions.  It was 100% ceiling here.  Surely it must be the same up at Kinross? Oh, dear me, no.  By M90 Junction 3, the sky was breaking up and the sun came out to knacker it up, as it just about always does (if other things don't).

We ran in to our other perennial anomaly as well.  When we are there for an evening, the place has fished its head off during the day.  But if we go for a day session, we get a grueller.  The day boats (having had good conditions) came off with bag loads of fish.  All this had happened a couple of weeks ago and we could see the same thing teeing itself up here.  Oh, well, nothing ventured...

Derek K and I tried the north to start with, but that was like death warmed up.  We decided to cut and head for the west point, but as we approached, we saw a few boats concentrating on the east buoy.  Curious, we dropped in and were soon into fishy action.  Derek started catching on this fly, which he assured me was a wee soldier palmer.  I thought it looked more like an orange blob, so I put one on and soon caught a fish on it.  Derek also had a couple on a wee Viva, and I had one on a minkie.  Our lines were DI-3 and DI-4, respectively.  After 3 or 4 drifts over the area, the action dropped away as the wind picked up to a fresh WSW and the boats moved away.  We followed suit and went upwind to take a drift out from Gairney mouth towards St. Serf's.

Derek with the first fish of the evening, at east buoy

This proved a good move as we had fresh sport, though we didn't really stick to our chances, boating just one more apiece.  The last of these was a covered brownie, which gave us the impression that there might be a late chance with some browns, and that kept us out till the 11.30 deadline.

When we got in, we discovered we were the coo's tail, and so I don't have much more to report, as most of the others were away.  Alan M had 3 brownies, taken on intermediate at the deep side of St Serf's and later at Scart, taken to a cormorant and a "thunder and lightning".  Fraser G had 2 rainbows for 5 lb 10.5 oz, the larger being the best fish of the night, at 3 lb 7.5 oz.

Derek K's bag of 5 for 9 lb 11 oz was by far the best.  The club's total for 14 rods was 11 rainbows for 23 lb 5.5 oz plus 4 browns for 5 lb 10 oz.