Based on the weather forecast, I was expecting relatively strong winds and difficult conditions. On arrival, things were much calmer than forecast, with a manageable westerly wind and plenty of cloud cover. We had several cancellations for this outing, with only 5 boats being required, and with myself out as the Lone Ranger. I was one of the last boats to sail and just headed out towards Sam’s Point, starting a drift back towards the Hotel. I set up with a single dry and within the first 10 to 15 minutes had my first fish of 3 to 4lb to a yellow owl. Things were looking promising.
I repeated the drift a couple of times and had the odd swirl at my fly, but nothing else stuck. I headed over to the Butts and again was rewarded with nothing other than a few swirls. There were very few other anglers, so I went travelling out round Arnmach and up towards the Malling shore. I spent a lot of time fishing the dries around Malling, Stable Point, the Heronry down into Sandy Bay, and still failed to connect. I saw very few other boats landing fish and all I could get was the odd swirl, never connecting.
The wind by now had picked up, so I returned to the Butts for some shelter. There I tried pulling some cormorants and an orange blob. I got my second trout to a cormorant with red tinsel. I had some fish follow the blob, but again never connecting with anything. For a finale, I went back to the dries and repeated my earlier drift down Sam’s point. I saw the odd fish moving and had the odd swirl, but none gave a hook-up.
After early anticipation the day turned out to be relatively poor, with little to show for it. Too many fish were simply looking at what I had to offer before turning away. As it turned out many others had similar experiences, with only 16 fish landed to our 5 boats. Top rod Adrian Coats accounted for 5 of those.
Adrian Coats adds…
Unusually I had done no research regarding successful technique or location and John Macgonagle and I decided to start at the top of the wind at Malling Shore. We were one of the first boats to arrive there and we spotted the occasional fish rising. John was a great friend of the sadly departed Trevor. In his honour, I started with washing line and a blue-ribbed Diawl Bach that Trevor had given me the last time we shared a boat. This, along with two epoxy buzzers behind a small booby, on a three foot midge tip. This has worked well for me in the past but produced no result. We stayed in the area for an hour or so but saw nothing caught by an increasing number of boats, so we edged round into Hairy Hole. Again nothing, so we moved to join the flotilla drifting along the line of buoys and I replaced my top dropper with an orange blob and tried a mixture of speeds of retrieve. Just before we reached the reeds the blob was seized by a decent fish that I weighed in the net at 5lbs 8oz. We saw another fish caught at the burn mouth, so tried to repeat the last part of the drift, but it became too crowded and we opted for the Rookery shore. I misjudged the wind direction and, as we almost hit the point at the start of Gateside bay, the blob was grabbed again.
Two on the one fly cannot be ignored so I cut down to three flies, with a damsel on the tail and something black in the middle. We zigzagged along the Rookery shore. As we approached Sam’s Point I had two follows, again to the blob, and then a third fish by the point itself. Three-nil to the blob in shallow water, so I put an orange fab on the tail and we tried the shallows marked by the two buoys. Nothing. We also did the east end of hotel bay, keeping close to the shore. Again, nothing.
John had tried a range of flies without response, so I offered him a blob and we headed for the Butts. There were few boats about and we drifted the whole way to Lochend without response. Hugging the south shore, by the trees just before Lochend House, John spotted several fish in the water right by the bank and one grabbed his blob. We repeated the drift a couple of times and I had three follows and then another decent take that stuck, still on the same blob and midge tip.
It then went quiet, so we opted to spend our last hour back among the customers at Sam’s Point. On reaching the area we found the wind had strengthened significantly. The lee of Inchmahome was rejected in favour of Arnmach Point, which I know is favoured by the dry fly men. And there we saw a couple of fish rise. A quick switch to dries on my other rod was rewarded as time was almost up by a nice swirl that stuck. Should I have tried dries earlier? Not according to those who stuck with them all day.
