Well folks spring has finally arrived and it arrived at Coldingham on the 4th of May. When we arrived, we had sunshine and wispy cirrus cloud – not enough cloud to be classed as cover but still a very pleasant day. The WSW wind, strong and very blustery, was the only fly in the ointment – but I did see the odd fish moving. After quizzing the experts, the sensible thing to do was to go out armed with a midge tip, a buoyant fly on the point and diawl bachs on the droppers. So, having ascertained the sensible thing to do, I put on a midge tip and the suggested flies. I was paired with Nigel Ostrowski and we both set out with the same set-up. We looked at the water just east of the cages but it was a bit busy for us, so we moved to the west end of the loch. As the wind was a bit strong for drifting we dropped the anchor just north of the reed bed. We would have gone closer to the reeds but another boat had taken this position. After twenty minutes or so, we both had a fish but then we noticed that every time the blustery wind dropped the fish were on the top. Looking over the side of the boat, I saw a few shucks and one or two brown buzzers coming off. We both quickly changed to floaters and shuttlecock buzzers size 12s and 14s (B100). At the end of the day, we finished with eighteen fish to the boat, two of which were super browns, one over four pounds and the other about two pounds. However, Bob Allan and Stewart Barnes operating the other boat that was anchored to the west of us and close to the reeds turned out to be our top boat with twenty-four fish. Bob had a floater and fished diawl bachs and cormorants. Stewart fished a bit of everything – yellow dancers, diawl bachs and various dries.
John Levy and Trevor Gibson fished local to the cages. Both used floaters and buzzers, and they had nine fish to the boat.
John Miller and David Tyrie also fished local to the cages. John used a midge tip with black JC diawl bachs and stick fly. David had a floating line and fished static buzzers. This boat did well with eighteen fish.
Garry Wright (nice to see him back again) was fishing with Bob Whyte. They fished close to the boathouse. Garry used a Dawson’s olive and diawl bachs and Bob had an intermediate coupled with a Dawson’s olive and, yes, you have guessed it, a Kate. They ended up with sixteen fish to the boat.
I intended to take some pictures, but unfortunately I had left the camera at home: silly me!
The club’s ten members landed 83 fish – 69 of these were returned.
