Sunday, 12th August
Glencorse, Day Session
Middle of August.... The past few years, it has been a case of dog days -- fish stressed-out with warm water -- lying doggo, or throwing themselves out the water. All change this year -- Jet stream slipped or something... Here we were with 2 fleeces on and hood up! The forecast said the weather would be quite good for fishing, though maybe danger of a flat calm. Aye, right! It was calm until we arrived. As soon as it saw us, it mixed up a stiff westerly blow to last the whole day. The sky gave us a fair old mix - dreich, then sunny intervals, and finally some rain.
Trevor with a typically residential rainbow -- look at the shape of the rudder!
Still, the conditions were quite decent for fishing, and we came away feeling we should have done better. It all seemed a bit slow. There wasn't much meat on the water -- just a few heather flies. There was an odd fish showing, but seldom more than once. The bay right up the top end was the best bet, but the fish were very easy put off. One drift out and down, and you had to rest it for a good bit before going back up. Apart from that, fish could be caught anywhere on the water, with them putting in little cameos here and there throughout the day. With the exception of a decent brownie, all the fish we had to our boat were cracking quality resident rainbows.
Early on was a good time to get a fish -- Dougie Skedd had 4 in the morning to a hare's ear emerger, then hee-haw all p.m. Two of us went with the heather fly approach. Our presentations were different, but both worked. Tommy Steven fished a dry pearly bibio with a quick figure-of-eight, while I got mine to a pearly-winged heather fly, fished static. Trevor, in the boat with me, went the figure-of-eight way, taking fish to heather fly and black hopper. Tommy's boat partner, Bob Allan went downstairs to take fish on DI3 and PTN and Diawl Bach.
A good wild brownie
I found that the fish in the morning, while not exactly forming a queue, did at least take my size 10 heather fly square between the chops when they did venture to have a go. As we went into the afternoon period the number of takes increased, but they were all edgy attempts that resulted in nothing but fresh-air shots. I was thinking, I bet if I change down to a 12, I'll stop getting the takes. However, as it was 100% fresh-airies at that point I thought I may as well try. So I changed, and sure enough the takes dried up! Great. However, an old beat-up emerger-style claret Klinkhammer came to my rescue and took a couple of late fish for me.
Ivor Young shows who's boss.
Stewart Barnes had an early fish to a damsel before changing to dries to take 3 more to elk hair emerger and daddy. Adam Marr, over from Hong Kong and fishing with Stewart took his fish to hoppers. Still on dries, John Wastle had 3 fish to black and claret hoppers, while John Robertson took fish to an elk hair sedge. Those mixing it up a bit included Chris Bell, who had 3 to claret hopper and hare's ear nymph, and Ivor Young, who had a brace to Wickhams and bibio hopper, fished slow on an intermediate. Bob Whyte took 4 to cat's whisker on an intermediate line, while Boyd Scott, took a brace to damsel on a sinker.
The Club's 18 rods landed 46 fish.
Photos: Canon 10D with 28-135 mm IS lens
