Dougie Skedd reports…
Another year, another first outing to The Lake. Once again fate smiled on us and the weather was very pleasant. We always seem to strike lucky with this outing. I shudder to think what it might be like when our luck runs out. Very similar conditions to those we’ve enjoyed the past few years. Would the results be similar? Well, no is the honest answer. The flat calm surface was covered in buzzer shucks. I can only guess that the fish had gorged on the insects when they were hatching, because very little was breaking the surface. Odd oncers were all over the place, but finding a fish rising steadily to target was beyond me or my boat partner.
OK, let’s have a twiddle. A three foot midge tip for me and a six foot tip for boat partner Dave Hannaford. Nymphy stuff with floaty things on the point for both of us. We could have been fishing in our baths. We moved around. Kate’s Brae, Gravel Pit, the middle of the eastern basin, The Butts, Chicken Leg… We tried them all. No response. We tried Gateside. Hee haw. We came back to Chicken Leg. There were some fish there that appeared to be feeding, but we couldn’t get near them. Any attempt to get closer and they just faded away. Incidentally, I think those fish were feeding on hatching stoneflies, which were fluttering about.
We eventually gave up on those fish and, since a bit of breeze had sprung up, we went for a pull back toward the Road Shore. We drifted into Kate’s Brae and a fish took my Clan Chief top dropper on a roly-poly retrieve. I was so surprised I didn’t hook it properly and it fell off. Round into the Gravel Pit. It looked just as devoid of life as everywhere else, but I’ve lost count of the times that area has saved my bacon. So, in we drifted. Dave hooked a fish on an orange blob. It fell off. Dave hooked another fish on the orange blob. It fell off. I hooked one on the Clan Chief. It fell off. A pattern was developing. We went round again. There were fish there. Dave hooked one that stayed on. Politeness forbids me to tell you what it was on, but I needed sunglasses to look at it. Then Dave got one on a cormorant. A bit better. Then I rose one to a sparkly claret dabbler. It fell off. Then I hooked another on the dabbler. All went well, when suddenly the fish seemed to have been turbo charged… then it wasn’t. I landed it, but my point fly was absent. I must have had two on. More fish to both of us. I was getting them on the hang. I’m afraid I also resorted to a fluoro monstrosity – but if you can’t beat them…
Anyway, we finished up with seven between us. All taken close to the shoreline in the Gravel Pit. Saved my bacon again!
The club’s 16 rods caught a total of 28 fish.
