Steady rain when we arrived at the reservoir. However, this soon cleared after starting and the wind was light form the south east with the air temperature around 18 degrees.
Bill Taylor advised us that fishing had been very tough due to the recent warm spell with water temperatures around 18-20 degrees and the fish lying deep. However, there had been some activity to black gnats blown onto the water from the banks.
Peter Fionda and myself decided to try the far corner and along the road shore and, although we saw a couple of rises, we managed nothing. So, after hearing from Dougie Skedd that Steve Kilpatrick had taken 2 fish in the dam area, we decided to head there around lunchtime.
It took us a while, but eventually I managed to take 3 fish using the Di7 with a booby, beaded damsel and wiggly worm enticing the fish. All in fantastic condition with the best around 7 lbs.
Peter lost a fish that seemed to be well-hooked and then took a while to eventually land a fish of about 4.5 lbs, again to the wiggly worm. (Please note that by this time he had raided my flybox!) We then started to see a few fish rising after seeing some black gnats and heather flies being blown on to the water. I eventually managed to entice 2 nice rainbows to Dougie Skedd’s mayfly emerger pattern, fished static.
The next largest bag on a very difficult day was Steven Kilpatrick who had 3 rainbows to a variety of methods and flies .
Keith Logan and Innes Zenati ventured to all areas of the reservoir, Keith taking a brownie and 2 rainbows, which was a good bag on a difficult day.
Ramsay Zenati and guest Barry Batten had a brownie each, with Dougie Skedd taking a single fish to a black/yellow booby, fished on a Hi-D Line.
Total for 10 anglers – 12 rainbows and 3 brownies.