Saturday, 10th May
Lindores Loch, Evening Session
Poorest fishing conditions of the season so far this one, with a strong blustery west wind, bright at times, and cold when the sun went in. Given this, it might have been a better bet than the usual buzzer fishing to go with pulling tactics. And yet, that just didn't seem to work. Perhaps it wasn't so surprising, given that the water clarity is currently superb, and the residents are now feeding well.
I took a shot of the stomach contents from a couple of fish when gutting them. The full image (28 inches wide at 72 dpi) made for interesting viewing, but unfortunately at 1 MB it was just too big to put up on the site. Here's a chopped down version.
In there (see below), there are buzzers: big black ones and smaller green ones... in all stages, bloodworm, pupae, emergers, shucks and adults. There are nematodes and a leech and water mites (still alive when I gutted the fish next morning!). There is assorted vegetation, including their favourite grass shoots and some Elodea. There are also Dixidae (meniscus midges).
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Large Dark Buzzer |
With the fish feeding, nymphing was the best bet in the early part of the evening. The bays on the downwind (road) shore, were where the fish were, although the strong wind made getting a steady anchorage near impossible at times. Tommy S had the evening's top catch to red buzzer patterns, and Dick L fishing with him, showed you are never too old to change to modern tactics as he took his first three fish ever on buzzers. Mike P also did well in the same area, taking fish on the flashback melanistic cove PTN and Diawl Bach. Some big stockie brownies showed up, although with a 20 quid "fine" for chapping one, they were all returned! They were good looking fish, in the 3 lb to 6 lb class.
Dougie S with one of the big brownies (photo by Alan M) |
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Small Green Buzzers | ||
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Buzzer Shucks | ||
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left: Unidentified nymph
right: Bloodworm |
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Leech | ||
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Dixidae |
Almost unbelievably, given the conditions, there was a cracking late evening rise (albeit localised), and a switch to the dries saved the bacon for Cap'n F and Ron McC, with fish taken on the half hog and a size 14 Adams hopper. Bert B was another who scored with dries, catching on an elk hair sedge. The best of the rise took place up the far end, just outside the "hidden" bay, and every rainbow we took there was a full-finned resident (sorry, no time to stop for a photo!).
The Club's total for 24 rods was 46 fish for 94 lb with 26 returned.
