Don’t read this expecting to see much about fishing, as the fishing very much took second place!
I was planning on having a day on Lake of Menteith, Monday but the weather forecast looks awful so at very late notice I was able to change this to Sunday. I am very fortunate to have friends with a boat and fishing rights on Menteith so its not arranged through the fishery there. ( I make this clear here, that the story relates to a PRIVATE boat not one belonging to the fishery, whose engines and boats are well maintained!)
I was up there by half nine and on the boat by ten, taking my new “boat box” and Airflo Boat seat for their first outing.
The weather was very grey, having started quite brightly this morning, and there was a fairly strong westerly blowing.
Once out the boat shed I started the engine after about 20 pulls, and started to motor out over Gateside Bay, only for the engine to stop.
I started it again, went about ten yards, then it stopped.
I checked the fuel, it was very low so I put a litre or two in.
It started, I went ten yards, it stopped…… repeat.
It seemed like fuel starvation but unlike the fishery boats it’s not got an external tank so there is no line to get kinked.
A rare moment of fishing action on Menteith- one of about a dozen casts all in!
I went round the corner from Gateside Bay to where the reeds are, and there was the odd fish moving, I tried to manoever the boat in close to drift down the reedy margin but it was difficult with limited engine propulsion, on a low throttle it simply konked out. The wind was odd, blowing seemingly right down parallel to the bank, in fact maybe slightly in , but the boat wanted to wander out to the middle near the island. I could not keep it straight and only had a few casts before I had to try reposition.
Cats Whiskers
Having manoevered round closer in to the reeds, I got a knock twice in rapid succession on one of my flies, I had a tungsten beaded Cats Whiskers on point and a Cormorant on dropper.
Unfortunately the boat kept drifting out and despite playing with the drogue it wasn’t happening.
Time for a move so I sputtered down into Gateside Bay having a cast round the point, still nothing. The engine would not start at all now so I set the boat to drift but really I was to far out, its usually better close in to the buoys. I managed to drift down roughly staright but again the boat started to wander out into the middle as I neared the Rookery. It was as if the boat was magnetically polarised to be repulsed by the shore- it would not tuck in at all. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go much further, my plan had been to drift the road shore but the engine seemed too flaky, maybe there was time to row back to the bay? I had to move all my stuff to get the oars positioned which was a ‘mare then the wind got up and I simply could not get enough headway into the wind. Try again with the engine , it started this time but now a new problem it was racing or running unevenly and even in gear there was no propulsion…… no choice but to make for the beach downwind at the fishery. I managed to drift into the bay opposite the hotel then row into land.
A chap at the fishery called Michael was extremely helpful and gave me a hand with the boat and a run back to my car at Gateside. The next hour or so was spent getting help from my firend whose boat it is, and getting a spare engine from the fishery to get it back to the boathouse.It looks like a shaft has failed on the engine so that was my day kyboshed, I reckon I got no more than an hours fishing all told so a bit of a waste of a day.
Maybe I should’ve rented a boat- the fishery engines seem much better!
