I arranged back in the winter to have a day out fishing with an old friend from work, we don’t work together now ( not directly at least) but still blether via fB and both being partial to wetting a fly agreed to meet up sometime in the early summer.
As Butterstone Loch is a place neither of us had fished, and being between us distance wise, Gareth lives near Inverness, we booked the day for May.
In terms of weather could it have landed better, OK wall to wall sunshine and 28 degrees isn’t likely to be prefect fishing conditions, (shame we didn’t have an evening session) but we set out to make hay before the sun shone in the cooler misty start to the day.
The water at Butterstone was as near to gin clear as I have seen in Scotland, lacking the usual peaty tinge of Northern waters,and it’s not terribly deep for a good 30 meters round the periphery. We were informed by the very helpful gent who greeted us on arrival that the fishing was hard in the sunshine and the best bet was along the edge of deeper water out from the lodge.
We took little time in getting set up and out before the sun started to make an appearance and headed out near some buoys were a few fish were topping.
My starter for ten was a heavy Cats Whiskers on point, a pearly cormorant middle and a Pearly Snatcher on top. Gareth was fishing something like a damsel on point and a blob on top.
A fish rose to my left and I tried to cover it, but got no reaction on first cast which was pretty near the area it showed, I tried again and had the gentlest of takes, then a strong, strong fight, with a 4lb Rainbow on the Cats Whiskers.
Nothing else showed near us but about 30 yards away there were fish so we moved using the very stealthy electric motor, and started again. I swapped out the Cats Whiskers for something more imitative, a nymph on a Jig Hook – no snagging on the bottom hopefully.
Hanging the fly this Rainbow chased it right to the surface , to grab the blob
Gareth soon hit his first, a 2 and a half pounder, I think on the blob and I then had another on the nymph. I felt it knock but kept it steady and it came again. Somewhere through the fight it rolled on the line and the hook (barbless) came out but snagged the unfortunate fish so it still ended up in the net!
Those of a nervous disposition look away now- those legs have not seen weather like this for a while!
I cast on and had a third, second to the nymph but this one leapt free.
Then Gareth had the catch of the day- he could see a fish following his blob and just held it on the dangle as it followed it all the way up from the deeps to grab it from the top- quite spectacular!
The sun was starting to peek out by now and within 15 minutes all fish movement had disappeared and the fishing got hard.
We had a go at some of the margins (knowing it was going to be a hard ask to get a fish there but it was fun to explore, then later we moved out to the deeper water and got the sinking lines out.
Purists look away now. On went the Di7, the short leader and I am ashamed to say, the Tequila blob Booby.
It took a wee while of this but I did eventually get a knock on the bottom and another 2 and a half pounder was netted.
I think we were both hopeful things might liven up later in the session for out last hour with the sun cooling a little. However I managed to spoil it by catching my pal! There had been little wind during the day, though what there was, was very changeable, and enough to put a nice ripple on the water.
Sometimes it had the nasty habit of flattening your back cast and I think on one such back cast my line was caught by a gust and the point fly dropped catching my pal in the side of the neck just below the jaw-: sore! Normally you would be wearing a jacket and maybe even a neck warmer of some sort and it would not be a big deal but it was very much tee-shirt order and Gareth was hooked. Try as we might we could not get the hook out so Gareth had to have a stop at A&E at Raigmore on his way home to have it removed with a tourniquet on and under three vials of Morphine. OK so there might be some exaggeration there…. it never bled but it wasn’t for coming out so a wee local anaesthetic was going to be the only way…. marring what was otherwise a great day. Looks like the fishing is on me next time, and I will fish the right hand end of the boat!
