Dougie Skedd reports…
I was awakened to the sound of a storm lashing the trees in the garden and water pouring down the front of the house. The forecast violent rain squall was apparently right. It was torrential while I was loading the car. I was desperately hoping that the whole forecast was right and the bad weather would be clearing from the west, giving us a good day. Could it be? Well, blow me down, it was right, and a particularly pleasant day it was too!
Stewart Barnes and I set out in bright sunshine to see what we could find. The boats had been full of water, so the rain didn’t miss out Menteith, but now a clear blue sky was the order if the day. I don’t fish the Lake so much these days, so I wasn’t sure where to try. Stewart suggested the Malling shore, where the best catches had been on our previous outing. It was quiet there. Too quiet. We moved round into Gateside. Quiet. We motored across towards the burn mouth and set up a drift about 100 yards out to take us into the burn mouth. I was fishing a 6ft tip and a washing line. Stewart was on dries. More quiet. I did have a fish come up for a look, but it declined the flies. Stewart got no response at all. We moved again. Across to between the islands. More too quiet. Along Arnmach, normally very productive, but on the day too quite. Again. Stewart spotted a gathering of boats in International Bay. We went across to join them. Bollocks! As we joined, everyone else buggered-off. We drifted right in, but to no avail.
I changed from the 6 ft tip to a fast glass. I felt I was fishing a wee bit too shallow. I kept the same flies though. A size 10 short shank pearly cat booby on the tail, a small size 14 standard cormorant in the middle and a skinny cormorant on the bob. The skinny was dressed short and sparse on a size 12 hook. Definitely small sparse flies. We started to run short drifts along the Road Shore. We had the electric on the boat as well as the petrol and it made the constant short drifts quite easy. There is an overhanging bush on the shoreline there that has often proved a hotspot in the past. No change there thus time either. A strange take and a very good rainbow was charging around in the shallow water. At least the granny, which I had been beginning to fear, was off. Kate’s Brae, and another odd take. Another fish right in the shallow water. I was having a bit of a purple patch then, because by the time we reached the Gravel Pit (where I expected great things) I had five fish. Stewart snared one there but I was quite surprised and disappointed to get nothing there. We tried a repeat of the areas where fish had been caught, but to no avail. The magic was gone. We motored across to Chicken Leg in the hope of some risers for Stewart to get a cast at with dries, but it was devoid of life.
We did spot a fish rising quite frequently, up near the old Shooting butts. We cruised along there. Stewart tried but couldn’t interest it. He was changing his rig when it began to rise again. More in hope than expectation I cast my washing line rig at it. A most delicate wee rise and it sipped in the booby! Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers…
We tried to get more of the infrequent “oncers” in there, but they weren’t playing. I chucked out my rig to reel it in preparatory to a move. A fish attached itself to the skinny cormorant. If The Force is with you… Anyway, we headed to Sam’s Point. There seemed to be something happening. There was. Just as we drifted past the point the best fish of the day, and that’s saying something, grabbed the skinny cormorant. It wasn’t happy. That was the end of the excitement. We fished on without any further interest. Still, a very pleasant day’s fishing with three on the booby, three on the plain cormorant and two on the skinny one. It was quite a change, weather and fish co-operation wise. More of that please.
The Club’s 16 rods landed 34 fish, comprising 33 trout… and a tench for Peter Fionda!
