A short ( enforced as I was getting wetter and wetter in the rain) outing up to Coulter today. It started a sunny morning, but I knew that would turn early on, and no sooner had I started getting gear into the car, big fat drops of rain started to fall. I wasn’t especially bothered; that’s what waterproof clothing is for!
There was a bit of a wind as well which frankly was more likely to see me heading back home early. I arrived at the loch and there were 4 boats out. As I don’t have any motive power for my outboard at present I realised I was going to be confined to the banks when I saw the way the wind was whipping up the waves… no way was I going to attempt to row in that!
Waders on and initially a two-fly cast to try limit the chances of tangling when casting across the wind. The wind was going to limit me to the near bank otherwise I would be getting a couple of hooks in the face. Geared up and having signed in, I wandered down the North bank. The water level has dropped a fair distance in the last few weeks, so there was a strip of maybe 15metres of dry ground which is usually sub-surface. Not unusual though, for the time of year.
Having walked and stumbled along this bank ( including a detour into the bushes to make way through the high grass behind as sections are near impossible to walk on due to big jagged rocks) I went as far along the bank as I could and still had the wind coming across me left to right.
I was going to fish a couple of small lures to start with on a floating line. The water was very warm feeling, probably amplified by the cool rain blowing in on the gusty wind. The colder my hands got the warmer the water began to feel. Dare I say almost tepid?
I made a couple of casts, then took a couple of steps and started over for about 10 metres, and I gradually worked my way out as far as the loch was wadeable. There are some nasty ankle-twisting rocks along sections of the bottom here, and you don’t want to enter those boulder fields.
As I completed 10 metres of bank I would stop and wander back and collect my rucksack, which was getting more and more soaked as the rain drove in. It did stop for spells to be fair but most of the time it was pretty dismal and wet.
I had spotted no sign of fish, though I was very aware of lots of swallows dipping down and skimming the water. That is usually a sign of fly activity but nothing was immediately visible, and I hadn’t noticed any cast-off shucks from buzzer activity.
I decided though to change the two lures to a team of three buzzers…I was going to try this with the heaviest ( though not beaded) one on point to get below the surface. I think in an ideal world you would have fished a midge-tip to maybe have a chance of getting below the warm surface level, but
- I hadn’t put one in my rucksack, and
- any sub-surface line fished from the bank here usually results in flies snagging bottom and getting stuck or lost.
Usually, from a boat it would have been fine. However, fishing buzzers from a boat in this wind might have been a bit of an exercise in futility itself. You don’t want to be stripping them in really but with the boat moving along carried by the wind and wave action that would be incredibly difficult.
So I opted to cast my buzzers out ( I will add, I have had little success with buzzers for Brownies over the years) and let them drift around carried by the wind, trying to keep tight to them.
And in the end this worked! About halfway along the section of bank I had chosen, suddenly the line ripped off and I felt I was into a healthy sized fish. And it was a Rainbow Trout; my first at Loch Coulter. Several ‘bows have been stocked this year, I am not entirely sure why, if it’s to allow the season to be extended past 6th October maybe, or just to provide some variety and opportunity when the Brown go into hiding. Either way it was welcome and provided a bit of sport on an otherwise miserable morning.
The fish was returned with no need for handling and other than a Perch that was the sum total of my sport. After a couple of hours I was pretty wet. My jacket kept the rain out just fine but it’s not terribly pleasant fishing in such conditions and with a fish on the scoreboard I decided to call it a day after two hours. A couple of boats had decided to bin it as well and the soaked anglers had returned empty-handed.
I was talking to one of the club officials and he was saying that relatively few ‘bows had been caught so far this season. He was also saying that the majority of Browns turning up appeared to be last season’s fish identifiable with grown-out tails. He was saying the catch return was very poor last year ( that was my experience…I never touched a fish all season there) and suddenly last year’s fish were making an appearance, slimmer and fully finned after overwintering and becoming naturalized to the loch.
Just a side note: hopefully I will get a bit more variety in my fishing soon between available time and having a bit money to spend on the odd permit. It’s been a bit of a lean spell of late with the Orange Danger Mango on the other side of the Atlantic kicking the legs out from under my pension just as I retired. Hopefully, I will have a bit more free cash in the near future!
