For me this evening session started at 0845 hrs. This was when Ken, the fishery manager, rang to ask if we had a day session or an evening session. He then went on to say that Trevor and Garry had arrived thinking it was a day session. However, as it was an evening session they decided to pass the time by having a practice.
When I left home, the sun was shining but I could see a bank of dark cloud being blown in on the WSW wind. Arriving at the loch the rain was rather heavy and the water looked as though dries would not be the best choice. This rather pleased me, as I had been tying up some size 12 cormorants that I had great faith in when I was tying them. Grabbing my waterproof gear I headed for the lodge to change, and as I did so, I eavesdropped on the fishers who had been on the day session and the whispers said dry flies/sedges at the west end. At this stage, my cormorants were abandoned and on went a floater, two Midas flies, one orange and the other claret, with an orange daddy on the point.
My boat partner was Hugh Thomson. When we got out, we scooted to the west end and, after a few casts along the north bank, I had a fish to the daddy. What a grand start I thought, and then proceeded to ‘fresh air’ the next few offers. Hugh and I fished the west end for most of the session and we ended up with seven to the boat. Around 7:30 p.m. we had rain. To give an idea of the scale of it, it was so heavy (and driven by a wind that popped up from nowhere) that the surface of the water looked as though thick smoke was streaming from it. We were sitting in what looked like a tropical storm. Fortunately, it did not last very long but it killed the fishing. After it, no matter what we tried, or where we tried it, we got nothing more than a half-hearted offer.
Peter Fionda had six. He used a midge-tip line coupled with a Kate, a Williams, a sedgehog, and a slow retrieve.
Derek Kilgour, using a floater and quill-bodied shuttlecocks, had seven fish. He also fished at the west end.
Our best boat, by a mile, was Jimmy McBride and Davie Tyrie who had 24 between them. They fished local to the dam; Jimmy on a floater with bubble and balloon fiery brown cadis flies, fished static. David fished exactly as Jimmy but fresh aired a few more than Jimmy did.
It was a good evening in as much as everyone caught fish, with The Club’s 13 anglers netting 57 fish – a rod average of 4.4 which, considering the weather, was quite good.
Our next outing is to the Lake on Saturday 16th July. Will we ever get an overcast day with a mild west wind?
Regards, Ed.
