Friday, 11th July

Glencorse Reservoir, Evening Session

Not bad conditions for a summer evening's fishing.  Winds that light and variable way.  Temperature a little on the cool side, perhaps, and dropping.  Sky, a bit bright early, an odd shower later, but over the piece a decent ceiling.  The water was close to top level.  George suggested the top bay and down the roadside with dries, and who were we to go against the management's recommendations.

Ross McLeod into one (cf shot further down - light still good and shutter speed 1/350 sec)

Ed Green and I went right to the far end to start, whereupon I stuck my chosen pairing of Adams Klinkhammer and claret half-hog out onto the water, to be met by a slurp and a good rainbow, first cast!  That signalled the start of an early spell of action that saw several resident rainbows and several more brownies of up to the one pound mark come to the boat.  We also caught a little wild-bred rainbow.  Dougie Skedd also caught one in the course of the evening.

A wild-bred Glencorse rainbow

After the initial good spell, it got a lot trickier.  The boats that had started up the top end started to filter down the water.  the fish, which had been rising quite well stopped showing.  There was the odd Caenis in the air, and we wondered if the quite spell was (as often is the way) the herald of a Caenis hatch to come.  With nothing showing, I put up a second rod with pulling stuff and managed about 6 cast with it before fish started to rise again.  About another 6 casts to the risers with not a single note of interest was good enough for me, and I went back to dries, where I stayed for the rest of the evening.

Mid evening, and tricky going

As the night wore on, there were no Caenis, and gradually the fish started to show again.  Dougie Skedd and Hugh Thomson found them on a line from the big bay, going out into the middle.  They had their fish to claret Shipman and deer hair emerger.  We took up Dougie's offer to join them on their drift, but the fish spotted us coming and kept low.  About then, we spotted fish rising in an inviting black water slick running along the deep, southern shore.  We went for a look and found a good supply of risers that didn't seem preocupied with anything much.  More importantly, they were up and going steady.  What a nice change from shooting at oncers!  OK, it was maybe a case of taking 2, 3, 4, or even more attempts at getting them to see your fly, but providing you could get it in their path, they would have it, no bother.

Dougie Skedd into one (cf shot further up - light on the way out, and shutter at 1/30 sec)

The fish kept going in the black slick till about 10.20, at which point they put the shutters up for the night.  And, erm, that's about the story, folks.  Our members are getting increasingly lazy at filling in the backs of their cards.  There were other fish caught, though bags were on average, disappointing.

The resident rainbows were in cracking nick

Photos: Canon 40D with (image 1) 24-105mm IS and (others) 55-250mm IS lenses