Sunday, 20th July

Frandy, Day Session

A right rubbish day, conditions-wise.  Middle of July, and we were layered-up like it was April.  It was cold, bright and windy.  Not what you want on a water where we have basically learnt how to catch them on dries and stuck with it.  Not much in the way of back-up plans.  The word was that dries were fishing well, although with it having rained the day before, the terrestrials were damped down and (there being no sort of hatch) there was no meat on the water, save a very occasional sedge.  We actually had a reasonable number of cloudy spells, which egged us towards making it one of those days where you cannot be arsed putting in the effort to keep changing and changing and trying to find a way, but just put up a team of dries, go out and give it your best shot, and hope for the best.

A bit dodgy - Hugh Easterbrook nets one for Dougie Goddard right on the dam.

The dam is a hot-spot, but with the wind blowing onto it, it can be tricky to hook, play and land a fish, and get away without incident

Dougie Skedd and I started at the creek on the north shore, and took a long drift down towards the dam.  We had an odd chance and saw a couple of rises early-on, after which we had nothing till we approached the dam.  Suddenly we were in amongst fish, and we picked up a total of 3 (claret hopper, Adams hopper and sedgehog) with Dougie losing a couple more in play.  Stewart Barnes and Trevor Gibson were also concentrating on the area, as were Tommy Steven and Innes Zenati, plus Dougie Goddard and Hugh Easterbrook.  With that amount of pressure, it didn't take too long for the fish along the dam to put their tin helmets on and put up the shutters.  Before they did, Stewart nicked out a couple on a damsel, Hugh and Dougie took one each on dries and Tommy took a couple to claret hopper and half hog.

A rainbow comes in on a claret hopper

With the fish at the dam rejecting our advances, we retreated back to our start point at the creek.  That was now equally useless.  With nowhere else to go, we headed up to the top end for a look.  Several boats were milling around up there.  It was a lot more clement, though the wind was caught in 2, or even 3 minds, as to what it wanted to do.  Swirling this way and that, it made for tricky fishing, but there were a few fish on the go (well, sort of!).  We were tuning in on claret being the colour.  Dougie had dropped another fish on a size 10 claret hopper and I had put one on in tail position.  A nice wild brownie of a pound or so obliged, and Dougie stuck to a couple on his version.

Which way is the wind coming?

We worked our way down the narrows and found an even more swirly wind area.  The swirly wind thing may have been a draw for the fish - knocking insects down onto the water.  There was a decent number of fish spread out and across the water, just where it was flattened by the wind's indecisiveness.  We picked up our last fish there - claret hopper again.  Stewart Barnes took one in the same area to a Bob's bits.

Dougie Skedd with a rainbow of standard stamp

Meanwhile, Tommy Steven had persevered back down at the dam and had eked out another couple to claret hopper and pearly bibio.  However, winner on the day was the conditions.

The club's 12 rods landed a total of 18 fish.

Photos: Canon 40D with 55-250mm IS lens