Saturday, 6th September

Lake of Menteith, Day Session

Dodgy weather forecast, and blowing a hooly in Edinburgh, but with it being off the north east, there was hope that there might be a bit of shelter through at The Lake.  And so it proved.  Not that it was exactly flat calm, but it was perfectly fishable.  It was mild enough as well and, when the sun came out as it did for extended spells, it was frazzling.  The water clarity was a bit poor in places, no doubt as a result of all the wind and rain, but it was clearer in other areas.  Some anglers reported seeing plenty of insect life -- shield bugs, heather flies -- and some of our guys had been fishing the Lake recently and the reports were all of dry fly action.  So I started with that, and Hugh Easterbrook (who went with a team of wets on floating line) and I worked our way down the road shore and on to Kate's Brae, and beyond to Lochend.

After an hour, the dries had failed to get an offer, and I picked up the other rod, which was set up with a subsurface washing line - slow glass, 2 snatchers and a small damsel booby on the tail.  I had put a big fiery brown snatcher on the bob because of all the shield bugs that were about.  Almost instantly, a fish moved to the fiery brown, and then another took it.  We were in front of Jimmy Nairn's at this point, and so we worked our way right along the reed beds and beyond to Tod Hole, taking short drifts onto the shore.  We both moved and took fish at intervals all the way along, mine coming to the fiery brown snatcher on the bob, figure-of-eighting, and Hugh's to an orange dancer, fished pulling on a DI-3.

John Levy describes to Fraser Gault the booby he is fishing

Meanwhile, Dougie Skedd and Trevor had headed in completely the opposite direction to get an onshore drift, by going up to the Malling shore.  They were straight into fish there, with Trevor figure-of-eighting on a midge-tip (no flies given on score card) and Dougie on a washing line set up of fast glass with woodcock and hare-lug spider on the dropper and coral & white and cat boobies.  They worked their way down the water via the Rookery, where they picked up a couple, before arriving down beside us at Lochend.  However, instead of fishing the downwind shore where we were, they tucked in at the back of the promontory at the gravel pit.  Dougie had a go roly-polying and hooked 4 fish rapid.  This caught on among the many other boats that had by now gravitated to the area, and soon every second boat was roly-polying.

Hugh Easterbrook, with a good blue

Another area that was producing fish was Sam's Point.  Bob Whyte and John Miller fished there, and round into Portend/The Rookery.  Bob had a bag of 8 fish to floating line and predominantly a size 12 Kate Mclaren, fished slow.  John had fish to cormorant and orange blob on a midge-tip.

Back with Hugh and I...  We had had a lean spell in the middle of the day, but we got the feeling that the fish were still there to be had, if we just adjusted our approach a bit, so we resisted the temptation to look elsewhere.  I stayed with figure-of-eighting the washing line, but changed the damsel booby for a small plain black one, and it took 3 fish -- 2 of them while it was sitting on the surface!  Maybe dries would have worked at this stage???  Hugh, seeing Dougie and the other anglers roly-polying gave it a try himself, and he had 3 hook-ups in quick succession to it.

Dougie Skedd, leading a roly-poly revival

By this time I was having yet another another lean spell, and wondered if maybe I needed to be a bit deeper - what with it going a lot brighter and Hugh getting into them on the DI- 3.  I took the booby off the tail, and inspired by Hugh's success with orange, I put on a wee orange tadpole with a tiny tungsten bead.  That was worth 2 late fish.

Other bags included Len Newby -- 4 to invicta on floating line, Bob Norris -- 3 to a gold-head blob on sinking line, and Fraser Gault and John Levy -- 3 apiece on floaters in the Lochend area.  Fraser was another to catch on F-of-8-ed fiery brown snatcher, while John washing lined it with booby, Diawl Bach and snatcher.

Given the far from ideal conditions, the Club's 18 rods landed a highly creditable 78 fish.

Photos: Canon 40D with (images 1, 2, 3) 24-105 IS and (image 4) 55-250 IS lenses.