After my debacle last week at Swanswater ( again!) and needing my fix of Rainbow bashing as we move into winter, I found out it was the last day of the “season” at North Third so decided to get a boat for the day. I had the place largely to myself, bar a couple of bank anglers who were fishing up the far end near the dam, so I decided to take the rowing boat down to the bottom corner opposite the fishery “office”. (it’s a shipping container).
Starting out with a Cormorant Fry pattern, I had tied the night before following Davie McPhails instructions on YouTube on point with a beaded PTN on top dropper, on a sink tip line my first proper drift was being pushed into the weeds by the strong South Westerly wind.
As I started into the weed and considered rowing out, a fish moved on the surface not far from the boat but rather into the wind. I thought I could reach it though and put my flies roughly in the area of the fish. A few tugs and there was the gentlest of pulls back and the fish was on. A decent 2 lb Rainbow, it looked bigger but the scales don’t lie.
Once safely netted I could see the fly was mangled! So on went a fresh Cormorant, ( an Irish one as I only had one fry pattern not enough holo-eyes!) .
Hot Orange bloodworm/buzzer as tied in Trout Fisherman Feb 2011
I never touched another fish and tried a few drifts at the bottom and then decided to go round behind the island, Nothing doing here either, and I swapped tactics to use a Boobie/Bung with three buzzers below it fished slow to almost static. Nothing doing again. SO back to the original area where I had the first fish. My first drift across I felt a thump and I was able to net a fully finned but really quite small Rainbow of about 1 and a half pounds on the red beaded bloodworm/buzzer.
The weather wasn’t great and it alternated between still, with cold gusts, to full on hard blow. I changed to a different tactic again, putting a fast sinking line on, a booby on point and a red Diawl Bach and a cruncher on droppers. The idea being , as its relatively shallow to get my line on the bottom and retrieve with the flies held up by the booby. Still nothing.
Lunchtime had long since come and gone and with the last few hours I decided it was time for an intermediate line and lures. On went a Humungus on point and a White Bunny Leach on dropper and I fished through a few more times, still nothing. As it was a stiff row back to base, I decided to move up the loch a bit, to in-line where the burn enters the water, and drift over from there.
First drift I had a knock, then about two casts later a thump and a fish was on, it looked a decent Rainbow, about the same size as the first but very broad across the back. It took the Humungus very near to the boat (pretty much on the hang) and I had its head up right away, but it got its wind and tore off round behind the boat right under the rod tip and made a lunge along the surface. While the rod was well aloft, it still managed to unhook itself and it was off. With less than an hour until the season closes, that’s one lucky fish!
I continued to get tugs along the side nearest the burn but the wind meant it was impossible to stay in that zone more than a couple of casts. Changing the Bunny Leach to a Yellow Dancer seemed to spark more tugs but with five o’clock looming and a hard row back it was game over.
I was happy with my catch, and will need to content myself with this outing as next week is an on call week and so I won’t be going to any paying fisheries, and the week after is hopefully the River Dee Grayling outing with Hywel Morgan, and John Emerson, which should be good! Cannae wait!
