I came home last weekend from a trip up north to a mayfly loch. As I was going to Glencorse, I took all my mayfly boxes out my bag – 5 of them, if you include the dapping flies. When I got there, I learned from the others that the reservoir has been enjoying a great mayfly hatch. Doh! Where did that come from, suddenly??? Never seen one up there before. While I had some dries I could press into service as mayfly patterns, it didn’t really affect us over the course of our day, as we didn’t run into anything other than the occasional dun, and we had fish taking other things OK. But it turned out we were not in the right place at the right time, as there was mayfly action to be had – see below from Jimmy.
Darrel and I fished dries when it was fair, and switched to pulling rods when the heavy rain showers came over and put the fish down. I just stuck with a black hopper on the dropper and an ethafoam-bodied beetle/terrestrial on the tail – both 12s. Darrel caught on a variety of patterns in the “just below the surface with a bit of movement” sort of category. We did best right out in the middle of the water, plus a useful run down from the top end to the dog-leg, later in the day. Several of the fish were in the 4 lb class and took a fair bit of subduing on lightweight dry fly tackle.
Jimmy Millar adds:
It must be at least ten years since I last fished Glencorse, so when Mel offered me a spare seat on the outing I was glad to accept the opportunity to fish it again after such a long time. Thanks, Mel.
I was also very happy and surprised to see one or two mayflies coming off the water as we assembled at the boats. The mayfly certainly seems to be spreading across the central belt these days, which is obviously great to see, from both an environmental point of view as well as a fishing one. Anyway, this was all it took to set the theme for the day. It doesn’t take much to convince me…!
So, Dougie and I both set-up with dry mays, right from the get-go and quickly picked-off three or four fish on them from in front of the bushes to the right of the harbour. All of mine took the big mayfly pattern and Doug got one of his on a foam beetle. An encouraging start, and it only got better as the day wore on when we went further up the water and got focussed-in on two particular areas around the seat and the lifebuoy, where we could see the fish rising occasionally, picking off the mayfly duns which were hatching and blowing out from the margins. Some of them were patrolling up and down the bank, very tight in…literally one or two feet from the side. Others seemed to be lying in wait, just in front of the bushes… not really showing that often, but ready to pounce on anything that resembled a mayfly. I wouldn’t say there was a good steady rise going on by any means. Most of what I saw came up just the once. But from the evidence we were seeing, we had the feeling there were plenty of fish in the area, and it seemed pretty clear what was going on. The wind was a bit fickle and the fly was trickling-off in fits and starts, but the fish seemed keen and on-the-look. The only thing that killed it was the heavy showers, which we just accepted and sat-out until they passed. Neither of us felt the urge to try anything else.
I’d say about a third of our catch came from covering a fish that was obviously staying high in the water and/or showing more than once. For the rest, it was really just about getting the fly in the zone and letting the fish find it. I chose to fish just a single fly all day. I didn’t want my dropper getting caught up in the weed beds or snagged in the branches when the fish made a beeline for the tree roots. I had a number of fish over the course of the day that I am certain would have broken me with a two fly rig.
A variety of mouth-watering takes – some were lovely, slow confident head-and-tailers. Others were just a nice wee sup, which you would hear and see at the same time. A common one for me was the fish looking at the fly and turning away before returning a few seconds later to take the fly down quietly and confidently. I’m not sure what happens to convince the trout to take eventually, but I suspect it could be just a tiny bit of movement caused by the boil of the initial refusal. Whatever, I love catching those. On top of that, there were several fresh air shots and fish lost in play or just at the net. Great fishing all round, despite the weather, and really impressive fish. Love those tigers.
Flies used today: a big compara-style thing (which I never got a look at) for Dougie. I think he mentioned it was a size 8. And I used a dun-coloured Found Link size 10.
