After all the wild weather of this season, we finished on a cracker of an autumnal day. It was decidedly cool, as the light breeze came off the ESE, but that was a small price to pay, when we had a light ripple and good overhead all day.
None of us found the fishing easy, and there were blanks on the sheet. Best bag by a distance was Keith Logan, who had 8, using a combination of twiddling techniques with a ghost-tip, FABs, blobs, Diawls and buzzers. Stewart Barnes had 3, but had a hold of another 5 in the course of the day.
Stevie Kilpatrick and I started out with washing line stuff; Steve on a midge-tip and me on a 10 foot tip. We started by approaching Sam’s Point and going round to the Rookery. On the way, Steve picked up our fist fish on a Nemesis in the middle. He also drew a couple of fish to his candy booby on the tail. I did nothing. I tried coming up onto a 5 foot tip. Nothing. I also tried a change of flies. Nothing.
We tried a change of location and went across to the gap. Going through, we saw one or two rises. As I was doing nothing, I put up the dry fly rod, with a 14 ethafoam beetle/terrestrial on the tail and a 14 black paraloop hopper on the dropper. Needless to say, by the time I got going, the risers had disappeared. I did get an OTB to the beetle/terrestrial, It was a sneaky one, and I was a bit late in spotting it. By the time I lifted I only got a momentary grip of it.
It was feeling decidedly cool now, as the breeze got up, ever so slightly. We tried taking a look at the head of the wind at the shoulder of International Bay, which gave us a drift down to the shallow marker buoys and on towards Sam’s again. Steve continued to draw the occasional fish without any hook-ups. I tried a slow intermediate, firstly with a washing line set-up. Nothing. Then I tried having a good old-fashioned pull with it, with traditional wets. Nothing. I also tried changing the dry fly rod to a moving surface combo of a sedgehog and a popper hopper (nothing) and a floating fry pattern (nothing).
We went over and tried Chicken Leg. It looked fishy, but nothing. By now I was realising that all my attempts with anything other than dries was akin to fishing without flies on. So, I decided I may as well just fish dries for the rest of the day, come what may. Steve also decided to give dries a go and put up a big foam daddy. We next tried going down to Lochend, starting between Jimmy Nairn’s and the red beds. We saw a couple of risers. Bingo – I got over one with the foam beetle and it took nicely. Bit of a stocko, but I wasn’t caring. No sooner had I landed that one, but Steve took a fish on the foam daddy. Progress!
We drifted on down to Bogle Knowe and on to Tod Hole. Nothing doing there, so we had a slow run along the Road Shore, looking for rises. That effectively took us back to the shoulder where, finally, we spotted a couple of rises. Not many to get a throw at. However, when I finally got over one with the paraloop hopper it took lovely. That was a nice resident. We were now seeing one or two insects on the water and the occasional rise, mostly close in at the head of the ripple. So, we settled-in, doing short drifts out, before sidling back in on the Minn Kota. The clock was running down on us though, and we were into the last hour.
I then had 2 or 3 fish in a row have a go at the dropper and result in a fresh-air shot – usually a sign of the nylon interfering and causing an aborted take. With barely enough time left to make a change (it was now 4:30), I swapped the foam tail fly for a 12 ginger and sooty paraloop hopper. I got a chance at a cover, right next to the boat, and it went for the dropper again! And I fresh-aired it again, spooking it as I lifted. I simply put the flies back down where they came from and there was a swirl at the tail fly. I am sure it had to be a different fish – but we had been aware all afternoon that they were going about in tight 2s and 3s. Anyway, I hooked it. It was a resident, and a bit of a lump, that led me a merry dance. I was an age landing it. We were now so far on in the clock that I didn’t bother with a photo. I got it returned and started to take the tackle down. By the time we got sorted and got back we were the last boat on the beach. That was the evening rise getting going. We could have done with the last hour of daylight!
The Club’s 14 rods caught a total of 26 fish.
We retired to Poppies for our annual dinner and sleep-over. Great food and great drink and great craic.
