Sunday, 10th June

Frandy, Day Session

Stewart Barnes reports...

We were delighted on arriving at Frandy, to find conditions to die for – mild, overcast, with just a hint of a ripple.  For a water that normally offers excellent top of the water sport, these were just the factors that have been few and far between on our previous visits to this high and rather exposed venue.  The wind did get up a little later on, but overall the conditions remained excellent.

The word was that it was fishing well to the dries and indeed that was the method of choice for the most of the anglers.  The areas fished were split into three.  Some went right up to the shallow water at the top end, some tried the margins of the middle of the loch and some stuck to the tried and tested drifts between the jetty and the dam.  All three areas provided trout ,although the latter area was not as productive as usual, particularly in the morning.

As far as tactics were concerned, the main choices were dries, dries and dries.  Allan Everington, fishing the shoreline and shallows, had four to Fiery Brown Sedge and Black Klinkhammer, using a slow figure of eight retrieve.  Boyd Scott had four to static Olive Hoppers and Parachutes at the dam.  This area also produced four for Bob Whyte on small Claret Shipmans and five for Tommy Steven on Claret and Pearly Bibio Hoppers. Tommy’s fish came relatively late in the day as he had struggled in the morning.  It was good to see guest and prospective member Gary Wright come in with a four fish basket from buzzers and dries.

Club Champion Dougie Skedd was in good form and ended up top rod with nine fish.  He showed his versatility by alternating between dries and pulling tactics with an intermediate and “washing line”.  As far as patterns were concerned he certainly rung the changes and caught on seven different patterns, the main ones being Coral Booby, Amber Tag and Black Gnat.  Dougie fished the top end in the morning, moving to the dam area in mid afternoon.

A rather modest total of 38 fish were netted with exactly half of them being returned.

It is worth noting for next year that anglers may choose to use their own electrics rather than the Loch’s petrol engines.  However, the fishery must be advised of this 24 hours beforehand.  Unlike Menteith, electrics cannot be used in tandem with the petrol engines.