When the secretary left North Berwick at 7.00 am, the temperature was minus two degrees – not an auspicious start. The fact that the sun appeared on the way to Linlithgow did something to raise spirits, but it was still a cold March morning as we tackled up. The word was that buzzers had been working in the Town Bay and that most fish had been caught near the shore. With a strongish wind blowing, most boats anchored up in this bay or at the North shore. Early on there was some action and things were showing some promise. After a very brief spell with a floating line the aforementioned secretary went on to a Di3 and, although he lost two fish in the next 15 minutes, thought he had made the right change. Little did he know that he would not even touch another fish from then on.
He wasn’t alone, with another 6 blanks being recorded. Ones and twos were the norm for the other club members, although Ian Macdonald managed four – all in the morning- with his trusty black tadpole on a Kelly Green intermediate in the Town Bay. Trevor Gibson and John Miller also camped their boats in the bay and had three each with black and green tadpoles and diawl bachs.
By afternoon there was a strong and chilly westerly blowing and in fact very few fish were netted after 1.00pm. Overall this was a disappointing day, but at this time of the year the fishing is very weather dependent and the fishery can’t do anything about that. On the brighter side, out of the few fish caught there were some crackers. Eric Singer had one at right on the 5 lb mark; Alan Holbrook (good to see him back in harness) had one at 4lb 2 oz and there were another three over 3 lbs. The final figures were 19 fish caught by 17 rods.
We can only hope that the weather will be kinder for our next visit here in May