Sunday, 15th August
New Ballo, Day Session
A good enough day. Given the weather we've been having, you would certainly have taken it. It was a lightish westerly, mostly overcast in the morning, the odd shower, but breaking away to bright from mid afternoon on.
We had some additional entertainment, in the shape of a microlight, which buzzed us a couple of times.
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The fishing was either good or bad, depending on whether you got into the run of rising fish along the north shore. Those who did had good sport to dry fly. Dougie S and JSB had 14 to their boat. Steve G had 9. Alan H, although only landing 2, had a grip of at least another 10. Elsewhere, however, the pickings were very slim, with most rods struggling for a couple. The one common factor was that the fish we landed were all caught on dries. Usually someone comes in with a brace on wets or lures, or nymphs, but every single fish we caught was taken on dry fly. |
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Why this should be is anyone's guess. The water was reasonably clear, there were loads of sticklebacks roaming the open water, the one fish we spooned had been feeding on corixa and black leeches. And there wasn't even much fly on the surface. |
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We gave it a go with nymphy stuff and had a go pulling with wets, but it was like fishing without flies on.
The fish we caught were mostly well-conditioned rainbows, of about the right size for the water (though a big one was hooked and lost), plus assorted brownies, from wee scrotters up to a nice fish of around the 2 lb mark.
Apart from Adrian C and Donald W taking a brace apiece to wee flies, the predominant size was a 12. The killing patterns were hoppers in claret, black and brown, plus heather fly, pearly wing black bits, red bits, black and red Shipman's and half hog.
The Club's 17 rods landed a total of 44 fish.
