Mel Mitchell reports…
We arrived to a crisp Spring morning and a full car park. Three clubs were booked-in for the day. The start of this season has delivered some fantastic sunny weather, with the first week of April being no exception. A weak Jet Stream has created what is known as an Omega Block (the jet stream adopting a shape similar to that of the Greek letter Omega), resulting in a large low pressure, both to the East and to the West of the UK. This has resulted in a large high pressure stuck between both low pressures, right over the UK. This in turn gives calm and blue skies. Alas, not the best for fishing, but certainly much more welcome than the stormy, cold easterly wind conditions we were constantly subjected to last season. That said, we were expecting our first easterly/north-easterly wind of the season, and it had arrived along with an icy cold chill in the air. Fortunately for us it was not too strong (10-12mph). It was certainly nothing, compared to the wind we experienced on Glencorse, a few days earlier.
The morning cloud was to break, and sunny spells were reported for the afternoon. Again, they arrived as expected, but did little to counter the icy cold feel out on the water, which remained for the entire day. We had 6 boats out and I was paired-up with chief ghillie, Peter Fionda. Peter gently pushed the boat directly out from the pontoon and we started our first drift along the south shore, from the lodge towards the narrows. The wind was pushing us more onto the shore than we would have liked, but the drogue and skill of our ghillie kept us on course. I was set up with a booby washing line on a DI3 and Peter was on a 12ft sink-tip, with a hot-head damsel on point.
There was little to see in terms of moving fish and we had little or no interest to what we were offering for the first hour or so. On meeting Keith Logan & Bob Whyte making their way back up from having fished the drift we were on, they reported 5 fish to the boat. ‘Must do better’ was our report so far. We continued our drift and were approaching an area about 100 yds short of the sign post on the shore and marker buoy when Peter’s rod bent and a fish was on. Unfortunately it was dropped, but was quickly followed by another, giving Peter his first of the day. This too was quickly followed by a second to the same damsel, prompting me to put a damsel on. It didn’t take long before I also got off the mark, with the hot-head damsel delivering again. We were now getting numerous tugs, with fish readily following our flies to the surface and swirling at them on the hang. Our mood lifted. We repeated this drift along the south shore several times, occasionally starting close to the lodge, but we never really hit the fish until we drifted over the same area, short of the buoy. If we drifted on past the buoy the interest also quickly waned. We had 8 fish to the boat by lunch time, with only one being dropped by Peter (pretty good hook-up ratio). Seven of the 8 were to the damsel and one was to a blob on the hang on my top dropper.
Another sail-past by Keith and Bob informed us that they had 17 to the boat by this stage. Again, must do better was the report. I had stupidly left my coffee and lunch in the car. Peter, in his role of chief ghillie, shared his lunch of filled rolls and home baked scones with me, so my thanks to Margaret for that.
The fish we were filling our creel with were smaller than we would normally expect at Frandy, but still good sport. We carried on through the afternoon and continued to have success every time we drifted over what to us was the hot zone. Peter dropped a couple more and I was broken once on a cormorant. We ventured back past the lodge towards the dam on occasion, but again failed to find any interest. A final drift along the north shore opposite the lodge equally failed to deliver any excitement. We matched one another all day and finally had 17 to the boat. A good day out.
Keith Logan adds…
Frandy has new fishery managers, now that Kenny has retired. So, it was going to be interesting to look out for any changes. Certainly, no bacon rolls or refreshments by the stove on offer at this stage, but refurbishments to the bothy are apparently now nearing completion. Also, a stricter regime of 9:00am start and 4:30 pm finish is now in place. One positive was that the propane outboards were given a good warm up before we loaded the boats. The cold weather can prove more of a challenge to get them started. (Thank f*** for that, Ed.)
The sun was splitting the stones, but the wind was a bitterly cold north-westerly, so everyone was getting layered-up and the fingerless gloves were quickly being retrieved from the bottoms of tackle bags. It was understandable to see why a few of our club members believe an early trip to Glen Devon is a risk, weather-wise. Certainly a bit early for the dry fly fishers. Lures, with a variety of intermediates and Di-3s were the most obvious choices, and there were beaded damsels in all their different guises being loaded to match the hatch – nothing was obvious other than the odd flourish of tiny buzzers. Down and dirty seemed the only answer.
Water clarity was as to be expected and beautifully clear, but overall the reservoir water level was much lower than we would have expected for this early in the season. Also of interest was the lack of bank anglers that normally have a lot of success fishing the bank along the south shore, towards the dam at this time of year.
It was still a decent turnout for the club, with 12 rods out for the day. I was paired with my traditional Frandy partner, Bob Whyte; excellent news for me, given the amazing turnaround in the fortunes of Hibs this season what with Bob a season ticket holder at Tynecastle! Bob is another of our dry fly exponents, but like me we were starting on Di-3. Di-5 was briefly mentioned, but we quickly moved on, since this would be a step too far. We were going to focus on the south shore, like most of our rods, and we were spread right down from the dam to the narrows. John McGonagle and David Risien, one of our new members, headed down to the far bay. One or two boats had even headed across to the north shore.
We started our drift close to the shore, drifting slowly toward the orange buoy, pulling our lures. I had started with a gold-arsed cat booby, cormorant and size 12 tequila blob. Bob had one of his early season favourites on the point, a black nomad. It was a slowish start for us until Bob landed our first fish of the day to his black nomad. I quickly followed with a fish to the blob – both rainbows.
Thereafter we picked up fish fairly regularly. Of note was the size of fish that were at the smaller end – maybe 1.5 to 2 lb – but they gave a very energetic account of themselves. In between there were still a few tiger trout around. They were as aggressive as ever. They were better quality and by all accounts were part of last season’s stocking. Most of the club were picking up fish. One or two had also done quite well repeating drifts along the north shore, where some better quality fish were holding.
The club ended with 81 fish, which was a pretty good return in a bright and raw session. Of particular note was Peter Fionda’s first outing of the season, where he and our club secretary, Mel Mitchell finished with 17 fish to the boat, and Darrel Young who had a good basket of 12 trout – great angling!!
