Monday, 21st May

Lake of Menteith, Day Session

Cap'n Fishy balloted-out.  Stewart Barnes reports...

What are the three conditions we don’t want when fishing “TheLake”?   Of course, bright sun, strong wind and cold temperatures are the answers, and once again we were unlucky enough to manage the hat trick.    The flat calm on our arrival was short lived, and although initially things looked promising they soon deteriorated. 

 Dougie Skedd and myself tried drifting in towards the reeds in International Bay and our day started by being treated to one of the worst examples of boatmanship that I can remember seeing for some time.  We were about 30 yards off the reeds when a boat suddenly cruised through in front of us.  The “carefully chosen words of reprimand” had not the slightest effect and we ended up just having to laugh about it.  An early but brief flurry of rises in International Bay didn’t last long enough to make it worthwhile changing to dry tactics. The odd fish was being caught along the Road Shore and it was clear that Kate’s Brae was getting a lot of attention. 

 Dougie’s slow buzzer tactics brought one fish but the news from around the loch seemed to be that we weren’t the only ones struggling.    Lochend was dead, apart from a very feisty 5 lb pike which gave me a hard time.  By this time we could see fish being caught by the armada at Kate’s Brae and managed to sneak in a couple of times where my slime line damsel/cormorant set up accounted for another one.   However it was too busy and also quite windy by this time and we decided to try the north shore from the Rookery via Sam’s Point right down to Hotel Bay.  This was a fruitless move and we didn’t even have a touch on this drift.

 Having seen fish being caught along the Road Shore, Dougie and I decided to brave the wind and try again just along from International Bay.  By this time we were both on slime lines and seemed to be getting a few plucks which Dougie was sure were from fish, whereas I was rather pessimistically thinking it was weed.  I am delighted to report that Dougie was correct and to prove it he was soon into a fish on a cormorant.  I then started to catch too, likewise on the cormorant.  The answer seemed to be short 80 yd drifts, with most fish being caught within the last 30 yds.   Despite the hassle on such short drifts, using a drogue seemed to be worthwhile and we caught steadily up till finishing time.  Dougie finished with 5 to cormorant and small white cat, although he dropped 3 more at the finish. I managed to hold on to mine, with damsel joining the cormorants as the required flies and eventually accounting for 9.

 Elsewhere, the Road Shore was again the spot for John Miller, who took three to Diawl Bachs and for IvorYoung, who also took three, this time to a fritz damsel, both fishing slow on floating lines.  Unfortunately ones and blanks completed the sorry story and a total of 24 fish for the 12 rods was an unusually poor return for the club at Menteith.  Conditions seemed to be the winners on this occasion and we can only hope for better luck in the late season outings at this venue.