Sunday, 3rd June

Glencorse, Day Session

Nearly a perfect day, conditions-wise.  We had a good ceiling for most of the day, with the odd spell of sun and the odd shower.  It was warm as well: more than 10 C warmer than last Sunday!  The wind was light, but swung around a bit, before doing a full 180 in the afternoon.

The water was clear and although there was no real hatch, there were assorted small terrestrials being blown-on over the course of the day, most notably black gnats.  The water fished very well for us, with catches coming from every area -- even right out in the middle, over deep water -- in fact that was one of the best areas.  Most of the top bags came to dry fly.  The fish were coming decidedly easier in the morning, when there were very few fish actually showing.

Euan Cluness with a stock rainbow

More fish showed in the afternoon, but they were trickier to catch -- maybe because they were tuned in to the naturals a bit better.  In particular, we found good groups of feeding fish out in the middle of the water.  They were lying along some cracking slicks that formed, coming off the south shore and running out and across.  The slicks had a good amount of collected scrot (our name for all manner of dead fleas, shucks, leaves, seeds, feathers, etc), which was being picked at with relish (we call such fish scrot-pickers).

Some of the rainbows were punching well above their weight, and we had an occasional decent wild brownie in our catches (all browns were returned).  Seven of our 10 boats hit double figures (and one of them had only one angler), so here's a run down in no particular order (well OK, in the order the names appear on the sheet) of those 7...

Boyd Scott with a 'sounder'

Tommy Steven and Greg Milne were more catholic with their tactics, and they chopped and changed between dries and nymphs on floater and lures (hot-head damsels) on fast glass.  They stuck to the same drift all day, however -- along the road shore.

Bob Whyte and Ron McCarron also concentrated on the road shore, and the middle bay.  They did well with Bob's favourite combo of DI-3 and cat's whisker.

Ian Macdonald with a rainbow that thinks it's a tarpon

Euan Cluness and I both fished the same 2 static dries all day.  Euan was on a claret hopper and a Klinkhammer (can't remember the colour), while I was on a size 14 black Klinkhammer and a size 12 half-hog.  We were all over the middle section of the water in the course of the day.

Trevor Gibson fished dries (no, your eyes do not deceive you!).  He was figure-of-eighting an F-fly behind the island.

One of Glencorse's natural brownies -- and a fat wee fella he is too!

Dougie Skedd and Bill Scobie covered more water than any other boat, venturing up to the top end in the morning.  Dougie mentioned finding the fish taking larger static dries early on (black & red Shipman's and deer hair emerger), but having to go to a size 16 black gnat for the tricky afternoon fish.

Ian Macdonald and Boyd Scott fished static dries over much of the water.  Black Klinkhammer and olive comparadun was all they needed.

"Put side strain on him, Peter", said Mr Crabtree

Mike Phillips and Richard Goddard also covered pretty much the whole water in the course of the day.  Mike was on dry fly, and his killer was this beat-up thing (If ever the expression, "It's not the fly, it's the fisher that matters" rung true..).  I think it was a Bob's bits once upon a time.  Either that or it had a detached body -- which has become detached!  He even asked to get it back!  Richard - you need to turn the card over and fill in the back.

The Club's total for 19 rods was 16 killed and 104 returned.

Photos: Canon 10D with 28-135mm lens