Sunday, 24th April

Linlithgow Loch, Day Session

Cap'n F away up the silvery Tay.  JSB reports...

Fly fishing is very much seen as genuine “sport for all”.  Rarely can there have been a better example of how true this is than at our April outing to Linlithgow.  The youngest and oldest competitor, while not quite stretching from the cradle to the grave, gave the rest of the field a real lesson in how to catch rainbow trout.

Gavin Macdonald, a guest rod, fishing with his father, boated 13 L’ithgow rainbows.  Gav changed cleverly from swinging buzzers, diawl bachs and snatchers to figure of eighting a yellow fritz booby.  His father, grinding his teeth at the other end of the boat, managed only five, and when asked what the catching pattern was for Gavin, replied rather sourly, “everything”.  Gavin and Ian, not surprisingly, stayed put in the centre of Town Bay.  Big brother Callum, no mean fisher himself, could manage only three (although one of these weighed in at 5½ lbs) and wasn’t looking forward to having to listen to a blow by blow account on the way home.

No photos from the day, so looked back for a library shot, and... what do you know, even last October Gavin was showing dad how it's done

At the other end of the age scale Honorary Member Eric Singer showed that he was still a force to be reckoned with, taking 9 rainbows on a green and black fritz pattern fished on a floater.  Not “short of stock” here then Eric?  Between them, the “old and the new” netted exactly one third of the total club catch for the day – more power to their elbows.

Other success stories included the every steady Tommy Steven, who managed 6, again swinging his buzzer pupae at the East end of the loch.  Tommy often seems to contact the better fish here and his best was a cracker of exactly 8 lbs.  Although not such regular rods on our outings these days, Gordon Grant and Harry Paterson can still do the business and managed 13 between them from Town Bay using a variety of methods, including bloodworm (which had been tipped as a good bet), diawls and boobies - Harry’s best going 6½ lbs.  Derek Kilgour returned a lovely fish in the 5 lb category.

Harry and Gordon were into fish last October as well

The weather was reasonable, considering some of the days we’ve had for this outing.  It remained dry, but the wind being from the East kept the temperature down and it was quite blustery at times.  The quality of trout varied a bit but the few overwintered fish caught were lovely specimens.  A total of 36 fish for 89 lbs, with 30 returned, meant a pretty good day overall.