Was the proverbial game of two halves yesterday for Allan Everington and me. We started off in the Butts with what seemed like a glacial drift along towards Tod’s Hole. In hindsight (it’s a great thing) probably too close in to the Reeds. Most of the other boats were spread right across the Eastern Basin, out in the open water. We persevered on that long slow drift, which on any other day would have been the ideal spot, but not so on Sunday. We were both chopping and changing lines and patterns and even when we came across pods of fish, they seemed pre-occupied on a substantial choice of buzzers, both live and spent, and having a great time of it. There was also a number of decent sized sedges around. Lochend also proved challenging, with very little to show for it. I picked up a smallish trout to a black/ginger snatcher, but our buzzers, muskins, nymphs, et al, were proving very resistible.
It was difficult. We headed up towards Shear Point and met Fraser/Mel, and they were having a similar day to ourselves. Plenty fish around, but they were also proving tricky. Fraser had picked up a good fish to a Shipman’s and had a few other opportunities and Mel was in the midst of changing tactics – again! We spent some time around International Bay and we did pick up a few between us in the shallower water, when the wind died away. The buzzer hatches were impressive and the fish continued to be active. What little wind arrived was not sufficient for covering the fish and so we were relying on the fish finding our offerings, which we continually tinkered with.
We headed across to Reedy Bay, where we saw a few boats repeating drifts – so thought we’d have a look. However, we quite quickly decided to head back towards Shear Point and spend time in International Bay and along the road shore. Straight lining buzzers, pulling boobies with washing line style and suspender buzzers were all tried, but any fish that were netted were on a random range of patterns. As is often the case it is better to be lucky than good and we finally bit the bullet and put on a couple of dry flies. I had not packed the dries so just picked an old cast sitting on a rig holder from the end of last season. We found some fish very close in towards the Gravel Pit and spent the next few hours picking away. Rarely have we been in amongst so many feeding fish. It was a rare occurrence when a fish did show willing but very welcome when they did. Allan finished with 5 fish of which 3 were around the 4lb mark and all is splendid condition.
Dougie Skedd adds
Hurrah! A new season. What will this one bring? Better weather than last year? I certainly hope so. We got a pleasant day for our first foray out. We always seem to fall lucky for this first Lake of Menteith trip. It was maybe a bit bright, but at least the almost constant, windy, Tupperware grey days didn’t spoil things. There had been reports of good buzzer hatches since the start of the month and fish have been eating them, so we had high hopes. Adrian and I started out to see what we could find. Chicken Leg Bay was our first stop. Some fish were mopping up buzzers close in to the reeds, but neither of us could get a sniff out of them. As ever, it was very swirly in there and we couldn’t get anything going at all. We moved on down towards the old Butts area, then on to the pike nets. Nothing, nada, rien, hee haw. In fact, less than that.
We moved about all over the area where the buzzer beds are. It was frustrating, since whenever the breeze dropped and the sun went behind a cloud, buzzers would hatch in good numbers and fish would rise. But, without the breeze to push the boat onto them the fish were always a distance away and if we tried to row or paddle onto them they faded out. With lots of fish obviously in the area, we kept trying different lines, flies and presentations to get a response from them when the breeze blew or the sun came out. Still absolutely nothing. Adrian had hold of one fish but it fell off. Poor take? Probably. We eventually gave up on the touted area and went into reedy bay. There were some good-looking fish mooching around in there in the flat calm. Eventually I managed to put a sparse hare’s ear shuttlecock in front of one. I nearly fell out of the boat when it casually slurped it down. I had to go digging to get the fly back. Another three of his friends joined him. They were all good-sized lumps. A bit of a challenge on small flies. Weird day really. Lots of fish around, clearly feeding, but very difficult to interest. Ach well, there’s always next time…
The Club’s 12 rods landed 35 fish.
