Our attempts to negotiate with the weather gods for a decent day of conditions at Coldingham continue to fall on deaf ears. This one was bright and breezy from the west, not helped by the water being gin-clear and there being very little evidence of fly life.
The fish seemed arsy and only put in a couple of decent windows of effort: one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon. We heard of there being Caenis in the evenings and wondered if the fish were doing that thing where they are getting a feed at night, so rest-up during the day while waiting?
Despite the brightness and the lack of fly life evident, dry fly seems to have accounted for the bulk of our club’s catch. It could have been substantially more, as everyone seemed to fuffer from the ‘fresh-airies’. No doubt increased by the clarity of the water and the amount of C&R these days.
Quite a mix of patterns and sizes caught fish. A few came to foam daddies, while Steve Kilpatrick had them to a big size 10 black Shipman’s. Keith Logan had several late chances to a small shuttlecock. I was doing best with a chocolate brown size 12 sedgehog… until I broke it off on a smash take. I put on what I thought was an identical one… and never had a further offer to it!
Mel Mithell adds…
I fished dries pretty much all day and after much hard work I eventually got one to stick on an original double decker pattern, between Westerside Lillies and Rainbow Bay. Throughout the day I had the usual splashes and swirls we come to expect at Coldingham, perhaps not quite so plentiful as previous outings, but I struggled to get anything to the boat.
Towards the last hour Dougie Goddard and I drifted down into Boat House Bay. Gareth had told us that the trout had been feeding ravenously on Caenis in the evenings and sleeping throughout the day. So, I decided to put on some really small stuff to mimic the Caenis and went with a single size 18 CDC dry fly. This provided some immediate sport and landed me a further 2 trout, just off the Westloch Lillies, on the edge of the gentle ripple and flat calm.
I was covering the moving fish and they were taking it. I dropped one further trout, with a good deal of interest being shown in the small stuff. Far more of the offers were actually connecting and allowing me to feel the weight of the fish, rather than just the normal swirl or splashing.
The Club’s 11 rods caught 30 fish.
