Dougie Skedd reports…
Linlithgow Loch. A venue where I learned a huge portion of what I know about stillwater trouting. It was the only place available to me as a youngster that behaved the way writers for magazines described it. I devoured it at the time. Buzzers, and nymphs in general, were what the trout in the loch ate in industrial quantities and Imitating these creatures was the key to success. It had a reputation for being dour, but once the secrets of what the fish were eating were unlocked it was anything but. The writings of Arthur Cove, in particular, put me on the right track. Since then I’ve neglected the place. It got too busy for my delicate sensibilities.
Anyway, I digress. I agreed to make up the numbers for the club’s penultimate outing of the season at Linlithgow. Things have changed. The over-enrichment due to a number of factors has caused catastrophic algal blooms, but on the day of our outing the water quality wasn’t too bad. The night before I had tied up a couple of flies that I thought might be useful: a couple of corixas and some Blakeston’s buzzers, which used to be successful late in the season.
On the day I was paired with club champion Keith Logan, so even if the fishing was poor a good day out was guaranteed. The word was that fish had been caught the previous day along the rope in West Bay and along the north shore. We headed there from the off and drifted on a light breeze, right along the shoreline, for a grand total of absolutely zero. We returned to the supposed hot zone and put out the anchor. As we did a solo angler hooked and landed a large fish. Maybe things were going to happen? Not really. We gave it a fair go without a sniff, although we did see a couple of fish rise.
A move was in order. Keith had seen some surface movement out in the deeper water, so we moved there. We anchored-up again and worked away. Suddenly, the rod was almost ripped out of my hand and the culprit went off on a long, continuous run. It took quite a while to subdue the fish, but eventually we landed a perfect specimen of a rainbow. Bless you, Martin Blakeston. Your buzzer scored for me again. Difficult to put a weight on it. Five pounds or thereabouts maybe?
We continued. It became obvious that the surface activity was roach “flipping” as they do and in the absence of any other encouragement we returned to West Bay. Just as we arrived, we saw John McGonagle hook a good trout that unfortunately dropped-off. We got started again. Keith hooked and landed a good trout, so at least we had both avoided a blank! I wondered if I was maybe fishing under the trout. The very occasional rise that I saw showed the head, then the dorsal fin, then the tail fin, of a slowly moving trout. They were clearly cruising just under the surface. I changed from the midge-tip I was using (mainly to fish the corixa pattern) to a full floater and replaced the fluorocarbon with nylon to keep everything high in the water. Almost immediately, a fish took. Buzzer again. Thank you again, Martin Blakeston. Unfortunately, I made a complete Horlicks if it and let it snag one of my other flies in the anchor rope. Ping!
We fished on, more in hope than expectation by now. A fish came up and ate the sedgehog I had on the point. I missed it. Clown! And that was about it. Nearly everyone had a fish. One angler had three on today’s in-vogue fly, a pink snake. So, a very enjoyable day out. Plenty of fish about I think, but just not eating on the day.
