Saturday, 12th May

Coldingham Loch, Day Session

This was the archetypal 'game of 2 halves'.  If ever a day was designed for having an afternoon and evening session, instead of the 9 to 5 schedule, this was it.  The morning was cold, wet, windy -- from the north east as well: not what you want when you are perched on cliffs on Berwickshire's north east coast!  We really could have gone out at lunch time and missed nothing of any consequence.  My boat partner, Bob Allan had a fish on buzzers first cast -- before I'd got my flies in the water.  We thought we were away, but it was a red herring of mammoth proportions, as that was 100% of our sport for the morning.  Tommy Steven picked up a couple on buzzers, while his boat partner Bob Whyte also caught a brace, to a cat's whisker tad, fished on DI-3.  Stewart Barnes had a couple on a damsel.  Apart from that, it was nothings and ones all round for the first few hours.

Making ready for the awful weather at the start

However, around the middle of the day it cleared up and the wind dropped away to just a light ripple.  If it hadn't still been baltic, it would have been ideal conditions.  We even saw a couple of fish rise.  I had swung nymphs all morning for ne'er a touch, and I needed a change.  If there is one thing I have learned about Coldingham fish over the years it is that you can almost always get sport to dries.  I thought I'd give them a go.  We were still sitting at anchor, and I never like prospecting with static dries at anchor, so I put a big 10 sedgehog on the tail and figure-of-eighted it.  Within 5 minutes, I had had a look from one and caught one.  Progress!  I passed the word on to John Robertson and Bob Norris in the boat sitting next to us.  John changed over to dries and quickly took 2 to a parachute Adams (sorry, but I only have a photo of a very frottered one), fished static.

That was good enough for us, and we upped weights and went on a drift with dries.  Initially we thought we had struck gold, as a drift along the east shore out of swing-gate bay saw us get at least a dozen assorted chances, without actually landing a fish.  A repeat drift saw, ...er, ...nothing.  Damn!  Bob came off dries and put a wee orange tadpole to a DI-3.  We went in search of risers.  We were heading for the top of the west arm, but we never made it that far, as we ran across fish rising in the neck, just where it narrows.

Bob Norris readies the net for John Robertson (for it is they)

They were a tough audience to please, I can tell you.  Many covers simply ignored the flies.  Many others had a go, but with a splashy, non-committal type rise that you kind of knew before you lifted that you were not going to tighten into.  A couple of times I covered a fish, gave it a few seconds to see if it was going to take, then gave the flies a wee bit movement to see if that got its attention.  Bang!  That worked.  That suggested they were keen enough, so maybe it was a presentation thing.  We were seeing a few olive duns coming off, but didn't see any get taken.  There were also a few black gnats, and I did see a couple of them get taken.  I had on a hedged bet set of dries, I have to say -- fairly non-committed myself:  a size 14 black Klinkhammer on the bob, a size 12 Adams hopper in the middle and a size 16 claret Bob's Bits on the tail.  I had fish to all 3, so not much pattern there.  Meanwhile, bob was catching well with his orange tadpole.

Bob Allan with a bit of a stockie (sorry but it's the only fish photo we got -- photography took a back seat when it all got going in the afternoon)

Stewart Barnes and Ian Copland came up past us and found more rising fish up at the top of the arm.  Tommy Steven and Bob Whyte, seeing the action going on in the arm, came and joined in as well.  They all found the same hard-to-convert thing going on, but they got on top of it with pure perseverance, Tommy taking fish to a size 14 Bob's Bits, Bob (too many Bobs!) on a black Shipman and Stewart on un-named dries.  With only 20 minutes on the clock I pushed my luck too far with figure-of-eighting the flies at covered fish, as one such lunged at the fly and cracked-off the whole cast.  I had been thinking that the lighter breeze and brighter sky might demand finer tactics, but had been reluctant to change off the 3 flies to 7 lb double-strength with which I had started the day.  This was partly due to the time taken to change over when we were fighting the clock with fish rising all around us.  It was also partly due to my reluctance to go any finer than 7 lb double when the fish were hitting moving flies, and also partly because I just couldn't be arsed.

However, as I now had nothing on the end of my line, I put up a 2 fly rig to 5 lb double: a size 16 sparkle gnat and a size 12 hare's ear F-fly.  That met with instant success: a fish on each fly in the last 15 minutes to static covers.  So, maybe finer presentation was a key to better takes.

The fish were going great guns as we were forced to call it a day at the 5 o'clock finish time.  Pity!

The best of the boats that had concentrated on the main bowl was that of Trevor Gibson and Boyd Scott.  They took 3 apiece.  Boyd had 2 to orange tadpole and one on a dry hare's ear, while Trevor didn't fill in the back of his card -- again.

The club's 12 rods had a total of 38 fish... but if we had just had an extra couple of hours...

Photos: Canon 10D with 28-135mm IS