Saturday, 8th May

Lindores Loch, Evening Session

A very calm, very overcast (spot the noisy photos) eventually very dreich night.  The fish were rising all over, right at the 5 o'clock start.  Alan M was straight into the ones up the middle of the loch on dries (claret Shipman).  The ones at the harbour end were another kettle of... er, fish altogether.  They flatly refused to take a dry.  Spoonings of fish caught by other means showed they had been eating nothing but daphnia, so it could be the rises were to daphnia -- they were quite sub-surfacy boils.

Boat 4,444 into a fish

Most of our rods found it a struggle.  The loch was clearly full of fish and the water itself was in fine fettle.  Maybe the calm conditions caused extra problems, on top of the fish being a bit finicky.  After taking half a dozen on dries early, Alan M didn't get another fish all night.  Cap'n F just didn't get a fish all night.  Tommy S did well to take 4, again on claret Shipman, in the bay with the bird hide.  Mike P had 2 to Shipmans and one on a shuttlecock.  John M had a brace to buzzer and kingfisher butcher of all things.  Ivor, Alan H and JSB all had a brace apiece to assorted methods and flies.

Fraser G chased some wary residents in the bay at the far end of the railway shore and was rewarded with one to Diawl Bach and 2 to black Shipmans.

Steve with a stockie taken on static nymph

Star of the show was Steve G.  He sensibly gave up trying to catch the fish that were rising to daphnia and fished static nymphs on the drift in the harbour/road shore area.  That got the fish coming in steadily to a red holo Diawl.  After the light breeze dropped to flat calm, Steve switched to a hedged-bet rig of a black Bob's bits and a Diawl Bach, figure-of-eighting them so the dry bits got drawn just through the surface.  This proved highly attractive to the rainbows and Steve's total at the end of the night was a superb (given how tricky it was for everyone else) 9 fish.

The club's total for 19 rods was 38 fish.