After several outings where the waterproofs were given a severe test, it made a pleasant change to fish on an evening where no rain was forecast.
Whilst far from a balmy June evening, conditions at the start were by no means bad for fishing, with broken cloud and a moderate breeze. Unfortunately, as the evening progressed a cool breeze caused the temperature to drop, and this no doubt accounted for the limited rise as dusk approached.
There was a good number of feeding fish on view on the journey out of Town Bay towards the north shore, but the early evening rise did not last long and those fish that did come for a look at the dry fly tended to give it a close inspection, but no more.
Our five boats favoured the west end of the loch with Trevor Gibson and boat partner Alan Holbrook opting to put down the anchor in Trevor’s usual spot in Town Bay whilst the other boats opted to drift in an effort to find feeding fish.
Whilst the evening’s haul of 12 fish was both modest and disappointing, that figure would have been doubled but for breakages from fish that were not particularly large but fought well above their weight. It is perhaps time to recognise that with diameters of modern fluorocarbon having been reduced significantly, it is no longer necessary to fish with the traditional breaking strengths of 6 or 8lb if fish are to be brought to the net successfully.
Top rod was Derek Kilgour with 3 fish caught on a claret deerhair emerger. Trevor Gibson’s perseverance paid off with 2 to buzzers, whilst John Miller and Dave Bertram also bagged a couple, albeit to nothing more sophisticated than FABs and Blobs. Sadly, three of our number ‘blanked’, including your scribe, although his evening was not uneventful, having hooked both fish and boat partner Gary Wright on a number of occasions!
