Friday, 27th June

Linlithgow Loch, Evening Session

An interesting evening...  100% ceiling and warm and muggy at times, then cooler as the wind turned to the east.  The breeze was never more than light and was glassy calm at times.  We paid the penalty for the good cloud cover as it turned very dreich.  Thankfully, the rain was seldom heavier than that threshold level that stops fish from rising or seeing a dry fly.  Rising they were at the start too - in big numbers - in the shallows at the west end.  John Miller and Walter Mowat had a go at them with a variety of stuff, but couldn't get a look.  I had a boat to myself again, and I sidled in on them with dries set up.  Not a look!  I couldn't see what they were feeding on - there were no flies in evidence.  I gave them a go with Leadbetter suspenders - not a look to them either.

A snail-feeding blue

 I went back to dries out of a lack of alternatives as much as anything else and, after covering about 100 fish, I got a blue to take a 14 claret Shipman's.  What had he been on?  A quick spooning revealed the answer - stuffed to the gills with very small pond snails.  They must have been migrating at the surface - too small to be noticed, looking in the water (it was clear enough, but the light was about 2 candle-power).  It was years since I was presented with this challenge, and I was trying to remember what the answer was (if there was one) when it went calm and that seemed to put the snail feeders off.

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Spooning from a fish with a catholic taste

With the snail feeders going off, I had a trundle about the loch, looking for risers.  After a few false starts, I settled on a drift along the north shore, about opposite the palace.  Ivor and Tam Forrest were doing the same drift, and I soon found why - there were plenty of risers to throw at.  These fish were a completely different proposition from the snail feeders in the west end.  They were much more inclined to take a dry.  The earlier fish picked out the Adams Klinkhammer on the tail, while later in the evening, as the light started to go, they switched their preference to the dropper, a claret half-hog.  I had one break from dries when the rain was at its heaviest and had a fish take the Leadbetter suspender first cast - but it proved to be a one-off. 

Ivor demonstrates how to fish for rising fish - keep a low profile...

...and how not to do it

It seemed like there was no great number of sedges on the go - about normal numbers for late June.  I am of the opinion that trout, generally, are no great lovers of pupal and adult sedges.  Of course there are certain waters and certain hatches that are the exception, but generally they prefer most everything else (if it is available) to sedges (apart from the cased caddis).  And yes, I know that sedgy type fly patterns catch vast numbers of fish - I was fishing a half-hog after all...  Anyroad, surprising then, when I was cleaning the fish I took home and had a look at what was in the stomachs of the fish from the north shore.  As well as some larger pond snails, ram's horn snails, water mites (still alive the next morning, of course!) small sticklebacks, immature Corixae, caddis cases, large buzzer shucks, small green adults, assorted terrestrials, the mandatory filter tip, etc, the most common adult insect present was sedges.

A 3 lb resident rainbow from the north shore - taken on an Adams Klinkhammer

And, well, er, that is about all there is to report - the rest of the score cards were mush by the end of the evening...  Ivor had 3.  Tam Forrest and John Levy both had 2.  Something about a hat...   Lads - gonnae carry a wee grip seal bag in your waistcoats and keep your score card in it when it is raining?  It will make putting a report together so much easier.

Photos: Canon 40D with (images 1, 2, 4, 5, 6) 55-250 mm IS (a bit long for taking shots of your own fish!) and (image 3) 100 mm macro lenses