Not quite the 5 mph winds the Met office forecast, but a stiffish westerly that blew for the whole day.  The bit they got right was that it would be a mixture of cloud and bright spells.  It was more sun than cloud, although thankfully the sun didn't put the fish off rising to dry fly.

That was just as well, because they didn't seem to be interested in much else, as very near 100% of our catch was taken on dries.  Spoonings revealed very little... of anything.  A small amount of Daphnia, and that was it.  It was noticeable that there was very little fly on the water all day, but the fish must naturally look up for their food, as they responded so well to dries.

Best area was the same as 2002 and 2001, namely the road shore from the car park to the dam, and along the dam.  Alan M and Greg M fished this area, taking fish to assorted black and claret hoppers, including Alan's good-looking black half hog/hopper hybrid.  Tommy S and Ken MacL also fished the area, and their stand-out pattern was a heather fly (even though the first heather flies are a month away!)

Yet another boat to fish the south shore/dam area was myself and Ian Mac's eldest, Callum.  Our fish came to half hog, black hopper and Adams hopper.

Although there were very few risers all day, early doors the fish were taking a static dry out the blue, no bother.  About mid-day this changed, however, and p.m. they were very hard to interest until Alan started having success figure-of-eighting the dries.  A switch to this method got things moving again for us, although in the last hour they came back on to static presentation.

Several of our boats headed up the water, and they found fish as well.  Ian Mac and No. 2 son Gavin spent the whole day doing 2 huge drifts from top to bottom, and they scored with a black hopper variant, though they kind of spoiled the dry fly theme by taking a couple on the dreaded blob!

Stu B and Richard G fished the top end, taking fish to black and claret CDCs.  Meanwhile, Jimmy M and Dougie S concentrated on the middle section, north shore, taking fish to black/red combo flies, such as Jimmy's CDC and Dougie's Shipman's.

View towards the dam from midwater (photo by Jimmy M)

Alan M spots the paparazzi motoring by

The Leaning tower of Frandy (photo by Alan M)