It was forecast to be a nice day today and while I had an invite to go fish a rather nice stretch of the Clyde, I opted to head up to Pendreich for my first visit of the season. The Clyde option would ordinarily have been my preference but the wading can be challenging where I would be going and the knees and the feet simply aren’t up to it.

If you read my posts from last year on my visits to Pendreich you will be aware I had a particularly miserable season there and I think it was near the back-end of the season when I had my sole two fish on one visit for the grand total of two fish for my year there. I have had as many as seventy fish in a season up there but not for a few years and last season was the pits. That’s not to say it was the same for everyone, one friend from my club had, he reckoned, the best season ever there, though admitted he put the hours in and was generally finding success by fishing early on in the day.

As I arrived I was speaking to a few anglers who were leaving. There were fish moving but no one was catching, was the common theme. So I wasn’t hopeful, though maybe my tactics would need to be extreme.

A quick glance over the dam wall and yes there were swirls all over the place in a brief few seconds so I decided to set up my 6 weight on a floating line, I used the 4 foot butt section of an old tapered leader to get  some turn over and fitted a wee leader ring to the end. I decided to try some new fishing line today, the “Japanese” Akashi Take flourocarbon which comes in some ridiculously low diameters for the weight rating. Now I have to say I have seen some disparaging comments on this stuff on-line but it’s very cheap and really is like a hair. I did a bit of a pull test on a knotted section of 2Kg line and I have to say it did seem to break with relatively little effort but it wasn’t a terribly scientific test, I can snap conventional 4lb flouro, pretty easily too. Only by using it will I really find out. I tied on a 4 foot section of 2.5kilo line to a dropper then another 5 feet to a point fly, a wee Pheasant Tail Klink, a favourite of mine up there, though not last season patently. I put a small black buzzer on the dropper to hang below the surface.

The fish were clearly taking something just below or in the surface film, and though there were some pretty big insects hatching off or “scootering” about on the surface ( they looked sedge like from the distance, though maybe a bit early for that) they weren’t clearly taking the flies from the top.It was all reminiscent of those tough evenings when the Caenis are on the hatch. The only success I have had in those conditions has been with tiny wee flies.

After covering a few fish with the Klink/buzzer combo, I decided I wasn’t getting much interest and it was time to scale down. I scaled right down to a size 20 ( ish) black split wing CDC, a “shit fly”.

Panorama of Pendreich South side

Pretty still, out the breeze and fish rising. It looks different with the trees gone on the right. I see there are some sort of ground works taking place on the hillside towards the Sherriffmuir Road.

About two casts covering a couple of fish from the dam wall, and a fish came, head right out the water and snatched the fly. I lifted and was in! Not a huge fish but a fully tailed over wintered Brownie of just shy of a pound, with nice bright markings. It had taken the fly right down its throat but being barbless it came out pretty easily and went back without me having to touch it at all.

I noticed I had a bit of a knot in the leader where the dropper hung ( encouragingly it had not snapped during the fight) but I decided to take the buzzer off and run a straight length of line from the leader ring to the fly with no droppers.

I waited for a fish to show before casting, and when it did, I cast into the receding rings of the rise. Almost instantly there was a confusing double rise right by my flies, but I missed! I think maybe two fish came for the fly at once and either I missed or they distracted each other, not sure if they actually hit the fly at all- it was very odd.

I then covered another fish much further out, and it came a bit short, splashing at the fly but not taking it as far as I could tell. If it did I missed anyway!

However I persevered and was soon into fish number 2 which  put up a mean old scrap but again was identically sized but much darker marked than the first fish. The fish had  some odd scar either side which I think was either from being picked up by an Osprey and dropped or possibly a lucky escape from the jaws of a pike. Either way it had healed up fine which is a good sign for the health of the loch.

So already I had equalled my entire last season, could I exceed it in one visit? I felt I could.

Two trout

The first and last trout from my afternoon. Pretty much peas in a pod though number 3 was a bit chunkier and felt more like a fish of about a pound. Certainly fussy!

Yet again, being patient and covering a fish rather than casting blindly all the time and once again a trout supped the fly in from the surface. This was a better fish of a fairly solid pound, and proved to be a bit of a bugger to unhook having got in a bit of a tangle in the net, with the line. Once it was rested though, it swum off strongly none the worse.

I fished over a few more fish heading back towards the car, but as the breeze rose the fish seemed to head down and the breeze was a bit more apparent further along the wall, so I never managed to get a look from another fish, but already I am up on last season and went home perfectly satisfied with my 2 or 3 hours fishing, and fish on dry flies too!