I would have thought that with it being a Monday and a bank holiday, the roads would have been quite quiet, but no, the bypass was worse than any Friday at six. However, the weather was just fine. When we got to the venue, it was sunny with a gentle southeast wind giving a nice ripple to the water and fish were rising.
Sixteen of us were out and I was fishing with Stewart Barnes, which is good as he fishes dries as much as I do and we had a grand day out. The fish were rising but they were also very spooky, I think they had been hammered at the weekend and were moving at the slightest disturbance. The water temperature was 14oC the air was only 12 when we started but quickly warmed up and reached 17 at one point. Stewart and I drifted from the dam along the north shore – blethering, casting to rises dropping a few and catching some others. We ended the day with eleven fish in the net but dropped, from memory, six that almost made it to the net and we returned some brownies that were only a few inches from being counters. At around three thirty the wind swung around to the west and we had two more fish as we drifted past the island but then the wind turned again to the southeast and the rain started, not very heavy rain, but enough that made us decided to head for the beach. We finished with eleven fish in the boat.
Ian Macdonald and Bob Alan shared a boat and they had seven from boat bay – Bob used black gnats and a slow retrieve. Ian went with a black spider.
Andrew McKenzie and Brian Kirke were fishing together and they had seven fish.
Trevor and Garry Heseltine were fishing buzzers in boat bay and along the dam wall – they managed to net eleven fish between them.
Hugh Thomson and Alasdair McKechnie fished at the east end of the water and had five – Hugh was on dries.
Dougie Skedd and Bob Whyte fished all over the place – both on dries, sparkle gnats, and fished static. They netted seven fish each.
Tommy Steven and Ramsay Zenati fished all over using dries. Tommy had dry bibio’s and a slow fig8 retrieve – this pair landed seven fish.
Brian Griffiths and Derek Kilgour shared a boat. Brian used a floater, black buzzers and fished them static – this tactic got him four but Derek using black hoppers netted eleven. On such a tricky day, this was an Impressive result.
Our sixteen anglers landed seventy six fish, with a sprinkling of nice brownies – almost all on dries or buzzers.
