Saturday, 2nd September
Lake of Menteith, Day Session
A very damp, dreich day until mid-afternoon, when it dried up a bit. The wind was at first light easterly, then light southerly, then almost flat calm by the end. Ideal fishing conditions, and we expect to be able to fish dries all day in such at this time of the year. Unfortunately there was very little surface activity. True, there was little fly life until a few buzzers appeared late on, but we strongly suspect that the dry fly fishing has suffered as the average size of the fish has got larger. A 3 pounder just can't make a living out of what is available at the surface in the same way a fish of 1¼ lb can. Equally unfortunate is the fact that no one these days seems to be satisfied with catching fish of 1¼ lb. They also tend to go down the throats of cormorants all too easily. Having said that, many of our rods managed an odd fish here or there on dries.
It was a day of unusual occurrences in our boat. Jimmy hooked a rainbow just inside Stable Point, a fish around the 2 lb mark. As it came to the surface, it was attacked by a pike of around 20 lb. It only made one lunge, but did a fair bit of damage to the fish -- not life threatening, and Jimmy chose to return it. We were going to take a photo of the damage, but as Jimmy held the fish and I fiddled with the focus, the fish jumped out Jimmy's hands and over the side.
We did get a photo of the next one. A year or so ago, I caught a coarse fish on the Lake that I knew was not a roach, but I had no idea what it was. Today I caught another of the same species and Jimmy identified it as a dace. I had no idea they occurred in still waters. Quint has since informed me that they have been present in the Forth system for many many years, and in the Lake for quite a number.
A great all-rounder, the Diawl Bach -- it even catches dace!
Although the dry fly fishing was bit disappointing, the fishing generally was good. The club's 8 boats scored very consistently: 7, 8, 8, 9, 11, 11, 12 and 16 fish landed, making a very decent total of 82 fish for 16 rods. There were a couple of lumps as well: a blue at 5 lb 12 oz and a rainbow at 8 lb 8 oz. We could easily have had 82 fish on 82 patterns of fly, so don't go looking for magic flies here. What came through was slow retrieve on either a floater, a ghost-tip or a slow intermediate. The other thing to note was that fish came from every part of the water, with no stand-outs.
Dougie Skedd and Fraser Gault struggled a bit until they found a good and willing group of fish at Lochend. Dougie scored with a figure-of-eighted booby and flash-back Daiwl Bach combo on a slow glass. Fraser had fish to dries (claret Bob's bits, claret Shipman's) and Diawl Bach on the floater.
John Robertson nets a big blue for Richard Goddard, right beside Dog Isle
John Gibson and Ken Maclean both fished floating lines, and had fish at the Malling shore and Lochend, on damsels, muddlers and dries (black hopper and heather fly). John Robertson and Richard Goddard fished floaters with a slow retrieve in the Malling shore and Dog Isle areas, catching on damsels, soldier palmer and orange goldhead.
Tommy Steven and Bob Whyte were all over the water. Slow retrieve of a floater was again mentioned, with successful flies including a fair old selection: booby, Diawl Bach, half-hog, orange fritz, cat's whisker and Kate Mclaren.
Bob Whyte and Tommy Steven look for pastures new
Stewart Barnes and Eric Singer were our only boat to fish the International bay area. Again, a slow retrieve or figure-of-eight of floater and intermediate lines was successful, with white lure, cormorant, hot-head damsel and claret buzzer taking fish for them.
Alan Morrison and Allan Everington had the top boat of 16. They went into the heronry, and had it to themselves for much of the day. taking drifts on and down towards the plantation and the Malling shore, they caught steadily. They fished washing line set-ups on ghost-tip and intermediate lines, and had most of their fish on cat's whisker boobies (plus Diawl Bach and mini-cat). A slow figure-of-eight was the successful retrieve. Late in the day they had a few risers to throw at, and Alan Morrison picked up a few fish on dries (black Shipman).
Photos: Canon 10D with 70-300mm IS lens (and a lot of help from Photoshop to drag some colour and contrast out of the gloom!)
