Sunday, 27th April

Carron Valley Reservoir, Day Session

The great British weather, eh?  Seven days ago, we were sitting on Linlithgow, all happed-up against the biting easterly.  Now, here we were on the warmest day since some time last year, at times not a breath of wind, and the rest of the time "light and variable".  Not ideal conditions for fishing for brownies.  I guess that is one thing to be said in favour of there being rainbows in Carron these days -- conditions that are bad for brownies can be good for rainbows.  The lack of wind itself wasn't a problem for the brownie fishing, as there was a good hatch of buzzer that continued throughout the day, and whenever there was a decent ceiling the brownies were up and rising in good numbers at both ends of the water.  However, that perennial enemy of surface sport, the sun, spent too much of the day poking through the scattered clouds, making dry fly fishing a stop-start, stop-start affair.

Two gnarly old specimens

Of our 6 boats, 1 featured predominantly rainbows in their catch return, 2 had a roughly 50:50 split and 3 caught mostly browns.  Jimmy Millar and I started just out from the harbour - we had been watching a good rise get going from the car park, and Jimmy had an early fish, but the rise did not last, and we made our way up to our favourite spot - Carron Bay.  There was a light breeze coming out the south up there, so we started our drift right up where the burn comes in - always a good spot for a large brownie.  We both put the dries down and picked up the other rod, loaded with trads.  Jimmy was on the Kelly green, and I was on an Anglian Water slime line that must be at least 15 years old!  Right on cue, the fellah above whacked my butcher variant.  It was one of the best wildies I have had on Carron over the years and would have made the 2 lb mark.

Jimmy and I continued to switch between dries (black Klinkhammer and black Shipman in 14s and 16s) and pulling throughout the day, and while it was never red hot, we had decent sport (OK, maybe need to bolster that with the missed chances to make decent) from the brownies, with just a solitary rainbow to our boat.

Ian Mac was another on the Kelly green

Our top rainbow catchers were Ian Macdonald and Trevor Gibson, who got into them along the shore between Carron Bay and the far dam.  they fished intermediate and floater, with black tadpole, snatchers and dries all taking fish.  Bob Whyte had a 50:50 bag of browns and rainbows up at the top dam, taking 2 to a Kate Mclaren and all the rest (even the browns) to a cat's whisker, all fished on an intermediate.  Bob also caught a powan - and even that was on the cat's whiskers!  Dougie Skedd caught a powan as well, this one on a buzzer.  Dougie fished with Gavin Macdonald, again concentrating on the far end of the water, and their mixed bag of brownies and rainbows were caught on buzzers, dries (Klinkhammer, Shipmans, CDC F-fly) and pulling a slime line with claret snatcher.

Jimmy's first Carron rainbow

Tommy Steven and Richard Goddard fished all over the place, picking up browns and rainbows, including a big stockie rainbow of 8 lb 3 oz for Tommy.  Gonnae no put fish that size in Carron?  They switched between fast sink and floater, and between lurish stuff - black tadpole, Viva, Mrs Ross, trads such as soldier palmer, nymphs such as snatcher and Diawl bach, and dries such as Bob's bits and black hopper. 

Not much wind to be farmin' 

John Miller and John Levy fished much as Jimmy and I had done, mixing it up between trads (on midge tip) and dries (claret hopper), and likewise they caught mostly brownies, with a single rainbow to their boat.  They mostly fished in Burnhouse Bay and the roadside around Gull Island.

The Club's 12 rods landed 62 fish of takeable size - a good total in tricky conditions.

Photos:  Images 1, 3, 4, 5: Canon 40D with 55-250 mm IS; Image 2: Canon Powershot 590 IS