Lake of Menteith, day session, 16 September

This outing was notable for the consistency of the catches among our boats, and that is testimony to the consistency of the fishery these days.  The conditions were quite hard, being glassy calm a lot of the time and bright sunshine for the entire morning.  (It sure beat being at work though!)  And everyone found it hard going to some extent, with most folk switching between sinkers set up with boobies or tads, and a second rod set up with dries for when a cloud came over.  Even then, the fish were hard to get hold of, with several rods reporting them staying tantalisingly out of range.  Our boat had a different experience -- plenty to shoot at, but missing seeing our flies.  This happened when a flock of geese moved in at the back of Dog Island.  They dislodged a load of plant matter, together with flies, feathers, and other assorted scrot, all of which drifted downwind at a leisurely pace and caught the attention of a group of residents between Dog Island and Inch Talla.  They woke up to this source of grub but there was so much of it our flies seemed to get lost.  More than once umpteen covers of the same fish failed to get a take.

Our boat's claim to fame was to take 4 different species on the fly on the same day: rainbow trout, pike, perch and roach.  We might have added a brownie, but there's a challenge for another day.

Who's got the bigger grin?

As reported at the outset, we had great consistency, with our 7 boats (each of 2 rods) weighing in as follows: 9, 9, 9, 6, 12, 7 and 10.  No one had less than 2 and no one more than 7.  Jimmy M took 2 early to booby and Dunkeld and 4 later to pearly wing heather fly.  Stewart B in the same boat also had 6, mostly to a washing line set up on the intermediate of booby and 2 nymphs -- Diawl Bach and PTN.  Trevor G and Alan H took most of their catch of 9 to black hopper, switching to booby when required.  Another booby and dry man was Tommy S, who split his 7 between yellow booby and half hog.  John M took 5 on a red Bob's bits.  Fraser G also caught most of his half dozen on dries, notably a bibio bits.  The same goldhead-fritz-cat-tadpole-thingy that caught the last time caught again, fished on Hi-D.

Another great feature of The Lake these days is the way it can produce fish from all over.  Gone are the days when 90% of the catch came from either Gateside Bay or International Bay.  Our fish this time came from: Hotel Bay, Sam's Point, Rookery, Gateside Bay, Stable Point, Dog Island, Heronry, Lochend, Road Shore and International Bay.  Not bad going!

The 7 boats weighed in 62 fish for 138 lb 10 oz.