Sunday, 17th August

The Ballo, Day Session

What can one say?  An absolutely perfect day for fishing.  Calm and overcast to start, with a gradually strengthening southerly breeze picking up throughout the day -- without it ever getting stiff -- and only the odd blink of sun to add a bit variety and warmth.

It must be said that there was some trepidation with respect to the new management at Ballo.  We have been fishing the venue for several years and when we saw the new signs saying "Bait Fishing and Spinning Welcome", we were not sure if it was going to be business as usual for us fly fishers.  However, our fears were unfounded, as the bait fishers did their thing on the banks, and we did ours out in the boats.

Ballo is one water where almost irrespective of what the conditions and recent history are like, we end up doing best with dry fly.  So, given that we had overcast conditions, a light wind, and a huge fall of black gnats, it was business as usual.  However, while it seemed to be plain sailing for some, there was a bit of working out to do for others.  Alan M and I got into a line of fish down the dam shore that were feeding well on the gnats, plus black beetles, and assorted other black terrestrials.  These guys proceeded to give us the worst dose of fresh-air shots we have had for a long time.  Over the piece, we caught our share, on such as pearly wing black bits, ethafoam beetle and wee dark CDC, but we knew we had not made the most of it. 

Alan returns a small rainbow taken on black bits

Jimmy M reported having similar problems with "freshies", until he followed the lead of his boat partner, Ian Mac, and switched to bigger flies, such as red Klinkhammer and heather fly.  Ian had been getting into them on black/red and claret hoppers in 10s and 12s.  Ian and jimmy were further over, towards the home shore, and the majority of our boats ended up in that area, where there was a fantastic spell of action in early-mid afternoon that resulted in many double figure catches (most fish were returned).  Another interesting variation on the "How to convert chances?" theme came from two individuals in separate boats who found that figure-of-eighting the dries -- and not lifting at all, but letting the fish turn and hook itself -- was required.  Stars of the Butterstone web page, Tommy and Dougie S were the protagonists.  Tommy took most of his fish on a sedgy emerger pattern.

Leon watches his fish while Tommy and Eric watch Leon... and Ivor watches the birdie

Other good catches came from Leon J, who was on black hoppers and dry bibio, John M who fished Bob's bits and hoppers, but changed to pulling wets when the breeze got up later on.  Ivor also had fish to wee black wets, and John G had fish to size 10 muddlers.

Top boat was Stu B and John W, who between them netted 39 fish on dries (vast majority returned).  Their successful flies were hoppers, pearl wing bits, CDCs and heather fly.

The club's total for 18 rods was 57 fish for 58 lb 10 oz, with a staggering 125 more returned.  That must be the first time we have broken a 10 fish per rod average!