Saturday, 28th July
Butterstone Loch, Day Session
What a strange mixed-up season this is turning out to be. Must be the weather! Back in April we had the outing to Menteith where the fish should have been in the reed beds, but were out in open water. By late July, the fish are often sulking out in the deep water, but here we were catching them all out the reed beds! The bailiff told us they were in at the edges, and he was absolutely correct. He also told us they were being caught on floating lines, and nymphs and dries. Lures were not figuring in catches. For all but one of our boats, this also turned out to be the case.
John Levy with an acrobatic fish -- one of many taken out the reeds
Conditions-wise, the day was not ideal. The ceiling was a mix of cloud and sun, but the main problem was the stiff, blustery, swirling westerly, which spoiled presentation for much of the day. The other problem was logistical. With the reed beds on the north and south sides, and a westerly breeze, it meant that whoever was sitting on the offshore seat basically didn't get a kick at the ball. Everyone realised this, and so much swapping of seats ensured that everyone had a chance. Nevertheless, there was a bit of a dichotomy in the catches -- the best 5 rods all landed 8 fish each, while the other 6 rods landed 9 between them.
John Levy got tuned into the reed-bed fish better than anyone, and he had great sport figure-of-eighting buzzers on the floater. Diawl Bachs figured for guest Ed Green, who figure-of-eighted them on an SSI (super-slow-intermediate -- if you don't have one, you can use an Airflo floater). I also had fish on Diawl Bachs (on the floater), but when I put a black Spanflex buzzer on the point, it got all the attention.
Aye, ye're in trouble now, John
Nae bother!
As mentioned above, there was one boat that bucked the trend for floaters and nymphs. Tommy Steven and Dougie Skedd fished the south west shore reed beds, with Tommy stripping orange and yellow boobies on DI 7, and Dougie fishing a variety of lines and retrieves with cat minkie booby, black minkie, yellow dancer, popping bug, and hare's ear snatcher all taking fish. Stewart Barnes took fish to cormorant, Diawl Bach and hot-head damsel, slow figure-of-eighted on intermediate and floater.
John Levy with the best of the day -- 5 lb
With all the fish in the reed beds and a stoory wind, anchoring was really the thing to do, so there was not much opportunity to give the dries a chance. A shame, because conditions were good in spells when the wind dropped, and there was always an odd rise here and there throughout the day. I had a go in the last hour -- there was a steadier number popping away at the edge of the lily beds in the north west corner, but I couldn't get a look from them. I let the boat drift out for the last 15 minutes to see if there were any pelagic roamers over the deep water. There was! I picked up the resident at the top of the page on an Adams Klinkhammer (I trust Messrs Adams and Klinkhammer have no objection to their forced marriage).
The club's 11 rods landed 49 fish. One of the benefits of having all this crappy weather is that for the first year in quite a few, the fishing is continuing right into summer. So far, we've not been getting the dog-day stuff of the past few years, when high temperatures and low stale water combined to send the fish either sulking into the depths, or, if there weren't any depths, all stressed-out and just not for playing.
Photos: Canon 10D with 28-135mm IS lens and polarising filter
