Saturday, 27th May

Portmore Loch, Evening Session

A tiny outing of just 3 boats, this one.  And we were the only 3 boats out.  We probably were not helped by the fact that there had been a competition fished during the day session, so a lot of fish would have had their tin helmets on by the time we got after them.  In addition, it was blowing a hooly from, well, it seemed like every direction at once, but was probably mostly westerly.  We tried anchoring for a while, but with only one anchor, the boat was actually doing 360 degree turns about it!  A few squalls came over as well during the evening, then for good measure the temperature plummeted from about 16 degrees, to about 6.  Not good conditions for evening fishing.

John Dewar with the first of an early brace to buzzers

There were fish about though.  The word was to fish the sheltered water around the Laird's Bay with small black dries.  While most of us went with that and found it was no good, John Dewar went with a floating line and a team of black buzzers and quickly bagged a couple.  We changed to similar, and, after getting one to an epoxy buzzer on the top dropper, I put a wee black booby on the tail to hold the other flies up in the water.  That proved to be an accidentally good move, as 2 fish took the booby!

Tommy Steven also made the change and likewise bagged a couple of fish to buzzers.  That seemed to signal the end of the fishes' willingness to take a nymph, as everyone went quiet.

Tommy Steven (for it is he) with another to buzzers

It was coming up on 9 o'clock, and although there was hardly a fish to be seen rising, I thought it was worth trying a drift with dries.  We gave it a go, and, surprise-surprise, two fish came out the blue to size 12 half-hog and CDC.  Just before last knockings a couple of feeding fish appeared, and a cover got one of them.  Meanwhile, John Miller had gone up into the top bay, out from the burn mouth, where one or two risers appeared.  Attempts with dries failed, but John went back to black buzzers and took a couple of late fish.

A 2-fish per rod average in very poor conditions was not a bad result.

Photos: Canon 10D with 70-300mm IS lens