A superb day just to be out, after so much bleak, cold, grey, off-the-east type weather in recent months. I saw the forecast – no breeze and no cloud – and so slathered myself in Factor 50 before leaving the house. I had been out on our loch for just a couple of hours last Saturday in similar conditions and came off with a face like a well-skelpt arse, so forewarned was forearmed.
March has become a month for good buzzer hatches, and the buzzers were well on the go. I set up with dries – I was really never going to fish anything else in these conditions. I put up a shuttlecock on the dropper, and a crippled midge on the point, both sooty olive size 14s. The crippled midge had a ginger hackle. The early buzzer is a sooty olive, with a ginger flush. Stewart Barnes in the boat with me started on a washing line. But when I quickly had our first fish on the crippled midge, from a cover, he switched to dries.
We were hunting a wide scattering of risers that were well spread over the main basin. After a while, I decided it was just too flat for two flies and took the shuttlecock off. The only problem then was that the sooty olive crippled midge was blummin’ difficult to see. The surface was surprisingly scummy with algae for March. I had a spell when I got good chances to cover a fish that was tracking… but got ignored by it. By the time this had happened for about the fourth time, I realised my fly was sinking! Doh! It was just too sparse and waterlogged to get it back floating well, so I went to replace it with a fresh one. I went into my bag to get my box of dries. It wasn’t there! I knew straight away where it was. It was on the bonnet of my car, where I had left it when tackling-up! Horrors! I frantically set about getting back in. But we had the worst motor in the fleet. Every time it started, it got about 3 or 4 chugs in then conked-out. I was getting more frantic. Eventually I got it started and rushed back to the beach. I passed Connor and Douglas. I asked if a large fly box had been handed in. No. I went through to the car park… and from a distance, I could see my box lying exactly where I left it. Phew – what a relief! They would have taken a while to retie… though at least it would have got rid of a helluva lot of dead wood! Apologies to Stewart for the diversion. Back to the fishing…
We continued to track where we were seeing risers across open water. We were picking up a fish from time to time. Stewart had an early one on a beetle pattern of all things, before he switched to an Adams, which is a pretty good likeness for those “Scottish blend” buzzers. The Adams was working and Stewart stuck with it after that. I reckoned the fish were not too choosy if you got your fly in the path of one that was up more than once. The main problems were the number that were only up the once, and my own inability to cast accurately to them. There is still early season rust in the elbow – added to which my casting arm is pretty much knackered these days. But we kept the scoreboard ticking over until the sun was well up and really slowing things down. We tried looking about. Had a look round into Sandy Bay, and there were one or two fish going, but just too sparse and oncey. We came back and worked around Arnmach and across the reeds from Chicken Leg to the Butts. We gave it a go in that area, but it was quite hard going. We went on – down by Tod Hole – no signs really. So, we tracked across the open water out from the Road Shore.
Here, we started to find roving mini-packs of fish. Not many in each – 2, 3 or 4. And you only had a couple of casts at each one before they disappeared. But again, if you got your fly in the right place, you had a decent chance. We both picked up our last 2 fish in that area before the clock ran down on us. All in all, a cracking day.
Dougie Skedd adds…
It will happen. It has to happen. The law of averages makes it clear that it must happen. But, lately it hasn’t and we’re riding one side of the bell curve. What is he blethering about? The weather the club experiences on our early season outing to the Lake of Menteith. We always seem to be lucky and get very decent conditions. And we got them again this time! When Stevie Kilpatrick and I set out, OK, the temperature was still probably sub zero, but the sun was out and already quite warming.
Not a lot to see at first, but gradually an odd buzzer started to appear, followed by an occasional fish. Both the buzzers and the fish began to increase in numbers. So, we had both opted for tip type lines and washing line rigs with buzzer based flies. Almost immediately a fish showed at the claret suspender on the point of my leader, but when I lifted there was no contact. We stuck with the washing line approach for a bit, but the number of risers and the lack of interest to our subsurface offerings required a change. Stevie switched to dries and got one on a CDC creation. The second rod went up with dries mounted. A claret Shipman’s on the dropper and a quill bodied shuttlecock on the point. A cover, a fish and we were off. Another cover, another fish on but this one made a dive under the boat and the wee hook pulled out. Bollocks! Another cover, and a large fish headed out towards the middle of the lake. Suddenly, there was a horrible grinding sensation on the line. The fish had run through a snag and the leader parted. The end of the remainder was hairy looking where it had been abraded by the obstruction. A new leader and more fish to covers.
We were fishing close in to the road shore and it looked like packs of fish were cruising up and down in shallow water, feeding happily on the emerging buzzers. Eventually, the sun got a bit bright and the action slowed. We had a wee cruise, but couldn’t find anything of interest. By now it was roasting and we had to shed layers of clothing. We returned to the road shore and moved along, looking for some more fish. We found them in the Gravel Pit area in very shallow water. At some point the propeller on our electric outboard had decided to part company with us, so our manoeuvring capacity was gone. We both picked up fish though, despite our difficulties. It went dead, so we sailed over to Bogle Knowe. Stevie hit a wee purple patch there, and then it was time to pack in.
A lot of tomato faces in the car park. The bright sun reflecting off the water combined with the pasty white of winter complexions tends to result in that on the first couple of outings. Everyone had had a good day with plenty of fish caught and smiles all round. One day we’ll hit the other side of the bell curve… but not this time.
New lens for the 2025 outings – Canon RF 24-240 mm. I had been using a 24-105 for a good number of years, so it’s got a lot more reach. Quite happy with the quality for a ‘superzoom’.
