I fished the River Carron, I think, once, last season, it was when the lockdown had eased and the river was low. I think if I recall I went down on an afternoon and it was likely not the best time, but it was just nice to be on moving water again.
The section I fished then, is slower and one I am less familiar with but all seemed as I knew it from prior visits.
On Monday, a pleasant evening, I took a wee run down to the river on the bike to see what conditions were like. While there was a bit of decent rainfall last week I wasn’t expecting it to be much off summer lows. I have been avoiding the Carron mainly because its pretty much an urban river, so you are apt to encountering the general public on some sections which as Denny has been something of a COVID hotspot recently, I wasn’t keen on happening.
Some may think I am overly cautious with this whole COVID thing, but it is my belief if we all adopted such behaviours we would be well past the worst of this mess some time ago……anyway…..
I had a look down at Winchester Avenue, there was fishable water, and there was the odd small fish showing, and it was quite quiet in terms of pedestrians. I then took a look down at the Headswood Recycling area and was quite surprised to see that the big pool below the bridge has totally changed. It would appear that storms or flooding has significantly changed the path of the river.
There used to be the pool and a small beach under the North Bank, which was popular with the rod rest brigade. The Beach is totally gone, and the outflow of the pool is now under the North bank instead of out on the south side. The old outflow on the south side is now a dry barren former river bed.
Fire Service vehicles at the viaduct 
Water being sprayed over the river by the Fire Brigade
I then run down to Larbert and arrived to a huge fountain of water and fire engines! I wondered at first if there had been a problem emanating from the overhead railway bridge but after speaking to a guy on the bridge it appeared it was some sort of training exercise….just as well I hadn’t been fishing and planning on fishing here!
I decided to head on on Tuesday and though I was going to visit Winchester Avenue first I ended up going to Headswood as I felt it opened up more water to me. It does tend to get less footfall as well once you get away from the recycling plant entrance. The route down to the river from the south side seems to have changed a bit too, in the last couple of years and I could only find one worn pathway leading to the now dry riverbed section. That was fine in the conditions, as I could wade down to the next part easily enough. I opted to fish the new outflow to the bridge pool and gave this a fish though with a small black bug on point and a small Olive spider on the dropper.
I had not bothered with any form of indicator, I had a tippet ring above the 4 feet of tippet and my flies and I reckoned I could see that well enough to help me gauge the speed of the drift through the fast moving water. And sure enough, it worked quite well, I pulled two small Brown Trout and one very small Parr out the section all on the black bug in the first half an hour of fishing. I then moved down to a wee favourite stretch of mine. If there are fish about and rising it can be a nice place to fish dry fly, and there is a spot particularly notable for picking up the odd bigger fish with a nymph.
No more. The change in the routing of the river above has massively changed the flow here too. The small beach I used to drop my gear on, on the South bank, has gone, and the main flow of the river has left the wee deep channel that used to be a hidey hold for fish as an almost still side seam which looks quite shallow now. The main flow in much closer to the south bank and not that deep. I will add though that the lower section here, which was always fairly slow and shallow is now significantly deeper though still slow. I discovered that wading down to the next spot on the bend. I was in thigh deep water, which surprised me, it used to be ankle deep at most.
As I crossed the river I noticed a few, what I suspected were likely small fish, moving in the slow corner pool and on the tail out. I was in no hurry so sat on a fallen tree stump to watch and here and there the odd wee fish moved. I don’t think there was anything sizable showing. Much as this is a very fishy spot its one I have not done so well at. I think I recall losing one decent fish here and not much else. And so it was today. I fished from bottom to top with the bug that had caught three further up stream, and not so much as a touch. THen with fish still rising I swapped to a dry fly. In fact a series of dry flies, I must have tried 4-5 patterns and but for one half hearted swirl, not even a whiff of interest did I get.
It was quite disheartening really. As I fished I realised that I was beginning to find it very hard to see with my Polaroids on. When I had come out and first arrived, it had been a lovely evening, and looked to be set for another bonnie sunset, like a few we have had lately. However suddenly it had turned grey, a little damp feeling and really started to get cold.
I decided to take my dry fly ( I think by this stage I was trying a small Parachute Adams as I could see the post in the gloom) and worked my way back up stream. I covered a few (small) rising fish and again their indifference was palpable.
When I reached the bridge and was nearly back at the car I dithered for a moment, would I head upstream for a wander but frankly it was quite cold, grey and in fact I could see someone bait fishing upstream so I decided to call it a night. Mehh.
