Sunday, 26th June

Lindores Loch, Day Session

Heatwave time.  Bit of a body blow, when we arrived and were told by Andy that the loch had been fishing its best ever... right up until last week... whereupon it had just turned right off... totally dead.  Oh dear!  Andy kindly reduced the price to us, substantially, there and then.  He also asked us to kill everything we caught so he could reduce the numbers of fish in the loch.  They were obviously stressed, as they were hurling themselves across the water all day long.  The other major problem -- apart from the temperature of the water -- was its clarity.  We didn't have a Secchi disc, but sticking the rod tip with a Hi-Viz orange line under the surface showed it had disappeared inside of 2 feet down.

Very difficult to go out under such circumstances and give it ones all.  We made a concerted start, trying first one method, then another.  There was a bit of cloud cover before the sun took over, and an odd fish showing had a few of us trying dries (a method recommended).  We also tried swinging nymphs, and that got Fraser Gault a nice resident rainbow of 2 lb 2 oz, to a bloodworm pattern, fished at the far end of the railway shore.  We tried boobies slow and deep, we tried washing lines, suspender buzzers, blobs, you name it.  Andy had told us not to waste our time on big fluffy stuff... and we didn't.

As the day wore on, we fell by the wayside, one by one.  It was hot, there was nothing happening, spirits flagged, the number of heads showing in an upright position got smaller and smaller.  Eventually we too gave up, as the option of a kip seemed a much better bet.

There was a fish to be had, though.  John Robertson took one in the mouth of the hideaway bay at the top end.  John fished a washing line set-up on a slow sink, taking the rainbow on a hare's ear nymph suspended between 2 boobies.

When we trickled in at the end of the day, we discovered that a boat, not of our club, had taken 8 fish.  That stunned us.  By all accounts, they had been pulling with buzzers on floaters.  Maybe there was something in the idea of keeping the flies moving within the top couple of inches, so the fish could see them in the minty water?

One to take away and have a think about!

Photos: Canon 10D with 28-135 mm IS lens + polarising filter