Odd how things go. A couple of years ago, while fishing at Rutland, I caught a fish that already had a fly in its mouth. I took it out and kept it. Well, it looked interesting. I pretty much forgot about it until Saturday at Frandy. It was sitting in the fly box shouting at me. Try me, try me! So, I put it on… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
After a sequence of outings blighted by weather, it was a very pleasant change to arrive some place in good weather conditions. The drive up through Glendevon was delightful. It was flat calm as I arrived. The only fly in the ointment was a total absence of rising fish. Oh well, you can’t have everything. Where would you put it? Ed. I was paired with Davie Syme, who seems to draw the short straw more than strict chance would suggest. But he accepts his sentence with good grace.
With no risers, and not much breeze, I reckoned a washing line was the way to go. The boatman told me the fish weren’t deep, so I stuck up a three foot midge tip… but what to put on? Hence the bit about the odd fly from Rutland. It was like the result of a love triangle between a Shipman’s buzzer, a suspender buzzer and a hopper. It had quite a big piece of foam at its head for buoyancy, which also gave a satisfying “chug” if it was pulled sharply. A plain ordinary cormorant and a UV cruncher made up the team. The boatman had also told me that plenty of fish had been taken along the north shore of the reservoir and, since I had caught there on the previous outing, that’s where Davie and I started.
There are two gullies on the north shore at Frandy where wee feeders come down the hillside. We started at the easternmost one and drifted slowly down to the other one. The water doesn’t drop off quite so quickly there and fish hang about the stony bottom. It wasn’t long before a fish showed at the strange point fly, but didn’t take. I figure-of-eighted briskly then stopped. The line slid away and the first fish of the day came aboard. It had taken the Rutland fly. So did the next few fish. I would see a fish move just after I had cast, retrieve the fly away from it, then stop. The line kept just sliding away. I think the fly’s buoyancy was making it rise in the water and that was getting the trout to eat it. Davie picked up a couple of fish but it was very obvious the fish were tight against the shore. After I had caught a few we switched the boat around to give Davie a decent kick at the ball. I switched to a deeper approach to see if that would help, since I was now casting into much deeper water. It didn’t work. I got no interest whatsoever. I switched to dries. If I wasn’t going to be drawing fish, at least I could have something to watch. That actually worked. Davie was now in business (going down the shore) fishing a suspender on the point of his washing line rig, but I was keeping up, fishing a foam beetle. We had a cracking good day’s sport and ended up with 25 to the boat. All the club members had a good day, with individual catches of 16, 17 and top rod, 18… and I don’t think you can say fairer than that! Plaudits to Gleneagles for the quality of the fishing and the fish. They pulled like horses. More of that please.
The Club’s 10 rods landed 111 fish.
