An excellent day to be back in the Ochil Hills. Despite Frandy now being marketed by Gleneagles as a water sports destination, with recently installed outdoor sauna, it remains a favourite venue for our club. Normally by this time of the season the weather can be beginning to have an impact on some of the lowland fisheries we visit, as the water temperature picks up. This year that has not been the case, with some changeable and generally cooler conditions throughout May. Frandy, being that bit higher up, never seems to suffer in the same way, and the water quality as usual was in tip-top condition.
It was another good turnout for the club, with 6 boats out for the day. I was paired up with John McGonagle, so an enjoyable day was assured.
It was certainly the case that dries were more than likely going to be the order of the day, or it so it seemed. There was a steady south easterly, with overcast conditions; ideal for setting up long drifts down from the dam on either the south or north shore… or even right down the middle. Unusually, there was not a lot of surface activity obvious from the car park.
I set-up with dries: a team of daddies and hoppers. John set-up with a midge-tip and a combination of boobies and cormorants. We headed to the dam end and set-up our initial drift along the south shore. The water levels, although much improved, still seem lower than we are used to, and there is quite a significant area close to the dam that is quite difficult to fish due to the shallower water.
Not a lot of insect life visible, with a few small buzzers around, and still not the numbers of freely rising fish to target. Even the small resident browns were reluctant to put on a show. It was a slow start for us. John had a couple of bits of interest but nothing really stuck. I had a brief hold of rainbow that slashed at the daddy on the top dropper.
We continued the drift and could see a few boats repeating drifts on the north shore, plus a few heading down the narrows. There were a few bank anglers around. We always think that is a good sign that the fishery continues to be in good form. The trickle stocking policy seems to be keeping a good head of fish in the water. John got the first fish in the net to a cormorant; a cracking wild brownie around the 3/4 lb mark that gave a good account of itself. I picked up another brown trout shortly after that came to a black f-fly. However, there was just not enough activity and I decided to join John with washing-line approach, since he was getting an occasional bit of excitement. I put on a mini humungous booby on the point, along with a flashback Diawl Bach and pearly cormorant.
We gave the bank anglers a wide berth and drifted right past the sunken buoy. Ahead, we could see Matt and Peter playing fish in the open water. This is where we started to get some interest. The humongous booby and pearly dabbler (just sub-surface) were working quite well, while John was having an eventful session, hooking and dropping a number of fish. John suggested we head down the narrows. We could see a few boats down at the very bottom of the bay, and they were not moving far and seemed to be repeating drifts. We worked our way slowly down, every so often encountering a pod of fish and getting a few to the net.
We spent a bit time in the narrows, but then headed back into the main basin and went for the north shore. Conditions were still pretty good and we managed some excellent long drifts down. The fish on this shoreline were of a better quality and gave a really good account of themselves.
Everybody seemed to be doing quite well and we saw quite a few rods bending, Matt Wolstenholme and Peter especially so. Matt has had a number of good outings this year and is increasingly innovative at his fly tying. This time it was a chartreuse (other colours were equally tempting) wiggly worm pattern that was doing the trick on the day.
Our 12 rods totalled 69 trout, with 11 browns in our catch returns.
