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Lake of Menteith, day session, Saturday, 04 April

A good looking day at the start - flat calm with buzzers hatching and fish rising. Bob Allan and I started out on dries (Adams hopper and black Klinkhammer), and we were rewarded with some cooperative fish in the first half hour or so. Unfortunately, as soon as a breeze got up, the fish went down and the buzzers disappeared as well. End of story for the dries. We picked up the pulling rods and continued in the area - Hotel to Sam's Point, and there was a spell when the fish were being sconed all up and down that shore -- and across towards the pink buoy that isn't there. After one very productive drift (fast glass, cat's whiskers), the fish put their tin hats on. Bob picked up a wee pike of about 5 or 6 lb - and that was it. Time for a move. We headed down to the south shore, where we could see boats were hanging around. Sure enough - rods were bent over. We joined in and picked up several more fish - interestingly, they were nearly all on the hang (as had been quite a few of the earlier ones at the north shore). The wind was picking up all the time though, and it got quite squally. the grey sky we had had all day cleared as well, giving a brassy light - so not surprisingly the fishing tailed away over the last hour or so. Catches of note: John Robertson - 8 to slow retrieved green Montana and intermediate at Tod's Hole. Hugh Easterbrook - 7 to cat's whisker and DI-3. John Levy and John Miller had 5 each, both to slow retrieved cat's whisker and Diawl Bach on midge tip at the butts. The Club's 13 rods caught 57 fish - and no blanks! Not a good day for taking photographs - poor light and breezy. In the past I've avoided shutter priority to fix a fast shutter speed, as it has no option but to hike the ISO up when the lens won't open any wider. However, I've been impressed by other folks' results with the same gear I'm using, so have started experimenting more with shutter priority. It's also good for freezing action shots, like 'fish in play', and 'line in the air'. All the shots opposite were in shutter priority with either 1/500 or 1/750 s, f 4 to f 6.7, ISO 400 to 800. Bit grainier than usual, but OK. Canon 40D with 24-105 IS and 100-400 IS.		Click on the thumbnails for larger images...

GLENCORSE RESERVOIR 12th April

JSB reports... This was our first visit to Glencorse in 2009 and we had a slightly lower than average turn-out of 14 anglers. The conditions were very respectable for the time of year, with the westerly wind varying from light to moderate. It did swirl a bit in various areas, as it is wont to do on Glencorse, so drifting was awkward at times. The temperature was reasonable however and the overhead conditions varied from light cloud to bright sun. At this time of year sunny conditions don’t seem to put the fish off to the same extent, although there weren’t many fish showing for most of the day.

Most people had a fair bit of sport, with 3 boats having 11 fish each. Len Newby and Ivor Young were both using a slowly retrieved Green Fritz lure on an intermediate line on the Road Shore. John Robertson and Bob Norris stayed in the Dam Basin with a slowly retrieved DI3 and a Black Tadpole and a Damsel respectively. Tommy Steven and Hugh Thomson did very well to get their 11 at the Top End as they had to make a return trip to the Boat House thanks to both a broken rod and a broken outboard. Black and Yellow tadpoles on a DI3 did the business for them.

Special mention has to be made of Trevor Gibson’s basket of 19 taken on a Yellow Dancer and Orange Blob along the Road Shore. Total catch for the 14 rods was 73 fish, 56 of which were returned. We look forward to further success at this venue over the next few months.

Carron Valley Reservoir, day session, Sunday, 26th April

A bit of a near-miss, conditions-wise. Temperature was lovely and warm the day before, but dropped like a stone overnight. Wind was southerly (thought that should be a warm direction!!!) a lot of the time, which is awkward for Carron, blowing across the water and buggering up the drifts, and was swirling, changing direction, almost calm one minute, blowing up a squall the next. We'll use that as this week's excuse for not doing a bit better.

Adrian coats and I started up in Carron Bay, and were straight into fish, both pulling with wets on DI3s (muddlers, Kates, etc). However, that lasted just one drift before it went off. A few fish were showing (a few buzzers hatching) and so we gave dries a try, and that picked up a few more over the next couple of hours (Adams hopper, black Klinkhammer). Just when it was all going quite well, it went and brightened-up and that put the fish down. So, it was back to pulling, and again it was worth a few more fish.

Mid-afternoon, and we decided to work our way back up the water. We stopped in on a deserted Binns Bay (not a favourite of either Adrian or I), and were pleasantly surprised when we were rewarded by 3 good fish up in the top corner. Another move on down and we spotted 5 boats in Burnhouse, so went in for a look... but it seemed dead. On again, and another couple of stops along the south shore saw us get a bit more sport to dries for me, and a good bit of late action to Adrian, pulling wets on floating line.


Click on the thumbnails for larger images... All pics Canon 40D with 24-105 IS

Notable catches:

John Miller had 5 to a mixture of dry fly and small wets in Burnhouse Bay

Tommy Steven had 7 on dry fly (size 14 black bits) up the far end

Ian Mac had 6 on dries beyond Carron Bay

Dougie Skedd had 9 mostly to dries (Klinkhammer) and mostly in Burnhouse Bay (after we'd been in and dismissed it!)

Hugh Thomson landed a powan (and I think someone else did, but my memory fails me yet again!)

The Club's 16 rods landed 56 fish (37 browns and 19 rainbows)