Back to the Ochill hills and the 250 acre Frandy, a loch I like for its (normally) free rising trout in the shallow water along the north bank. It was one of those days when the weather looked as though it just might be quite good for dries – despite everything that Ken had said before we started out. He had advised that any rising fish should be ignored and that going down a bit was the best bet. However, with the light east wind I was looking forward to some long drifts and short lining along the north shore of this long narrow loch – drift that can sometimes produce a nice wild brown trout or two.
My boat partner was our new member, Alastair Beaton. Alastair tied on a single dry sedge of his own concoction, and winkled out a fish very close to the shore – almost under the trees. He then tied on a damselfly and got another. He tied on another fly and got another fish, a nice brown of well over a pound, and then again, with a different fly he got his fourth fish. An impressive display for a man with a floater and a single fly set up. Well done Alastair on your first outing with the club.
On the other hand, I had offers but could not hook them. I did get one on a size 14 loop wing and another big fish that I had on for a while before it pinched my three fly cast. Not my best day but then things can only get better. Very few fish were moving and the offers I did have all came out of the blue.
I intended to take some pictures for inclusion in the report but only had time to take one of Alastair landing one of his fish – a small rainbow for Frandy. When we came off the water, and in the passing, I mentioned this to Ken – he was very apologetic and said that they could not get the bigger fish they ordered but the same weight of smaller fish had gone in.
The water temperature was 16°C and the air started at 14 and climbed to 16°C . We had about 80% cloud cover, but it was still very bright and the slight east wind had a cold edge to it. It was a day that you would have expected better results. The water was very high; I have never seen the loch so high, it was going over the spillway by about nine inches – a lot of water.
Trevor Gibson was fishing with his guest, Gary Heseltine – Trevor had four fish using dries and a floater – Gary had five fish, on a floater and buzzers – they were fishing the west side of the north shore. Dougie Goddard, paired with John Miller, was fishing the bay at the west end of the loch – Dougie had four fish, two rainbows and two browns. John had one brown and two rainbows – both were using floating lines and dries. David Tyrie, fishing on his own, had two browns and two rainbows. David also used a floater and dries.
David Bertram was fishing with his guest, Gus Armour. David had on a sweep line, a Cat and Diawl Bachs and using a varied retrieve had five fish. Gus had three fish that fell to a dancer. Hugh Thomson was out with Derek Kilgour. Hugh had one on his very last cast of the day to a floater and dries – Derek had four rainbows and a brown, using a floater with fiery brown hoppers and loop wing CDCs.
The club landed 39 fish – a rod average of 3.55. Not wonderful, but for some reason the fish were just not rising, which was strange on a day that saw a good hatch of Cinnamon sedges and clear water that looked quite fishy.
The next day – Monday the 27th – Hugh and I were due to fish Frandy along with the ladies from the Invicta club – but on arrival at the loch we were met with white horses scudding along the loch and a strong east wind that was building. Happily, we were not allowed to go out onto the water – so we had a blether and watched the swallows above the lodge door for a while and then drifted home. I add this snippet just to let you know that our day could have been much worse than it actually was. At least we got out and everyone caught a fish or two.
See you at the lake on Sunday 2nd September.
