It had been a long week away down south last week and after getting a few wee chores done on Saturday morning to catch up, with the weather warm and settled it seemed churlish not to be thinking about some fishing. While bright warm sunshine is never going to be great for fishing there are few locations nicer that Swanswater on such days, and though I knew it wouldn’t be easy I decided to pop round the corner for the afternoon. Usually you would be thinking about it cooling down with Autumn right around the corner but summer seemed to have returned this last wee while. I had a lengthy blether with Alastair just after arrival, and he mentioned it hadn’t been fishing especially well, the water had warmed up again and the fish were slow. As if to confirm, an angler came off just then and said he had three fish before 9 then it had gone quiet, and he only had one pull in the rest of his time.
However I was encouraged to see a few fish moving between the island and the road side pegs and headed there, as I crossed the dam a boat angler hooked into a fish so maybe it wasn’t to be so grim after all?
I had a couple of buzzers on and within a few casts I had managed a somewhat tentative couple of nips at the flies and it was clear there were a few fish about. However after about an hour with several changes of pattern and approach I was still without a fish, so I decided I had given this area my best shot and it was time to move.
The island was deserted ( I don’t think I have ever seen it so on a Saturday) and most anglers were either in boats or along the east bank.
I did see a few fish get caught but no one could be said to be hammering them.
Fish were rising near the tree, some were small wild fish but this wasn’t
After trying more straight lined buzzers and nymphs, and even a small streamer I wasn’t getting any interest but I could see a few fish moving in front of me, they were definitely there, and the odd swirl suggested something was encouraging the odd fish on top. I tied on a Yellow Owl and about 3 feet below a red holo buzzer and cast out. As the buzzer sunk I could see the dry on top behaving oddly so while not convinced there was a take yet i was sure there was interest. Then it dipped and I lifted into a nice Blue trout of about 2 to 2 and a half pounds.
Initially it seemed to come in a bit easy, I thought the warm water had taken some of the fight out of it, and there were two large lumps of weed clinging to my leader. As I got my unhooking tool ready ( I was on a C&R ticket) it took off taking about 10 yards of line off my reel.
A few more minutes and with the line to hand I was able to get the fish off and away without touching it.
Does it get more idyllic than this
I was pretty satisfied with my efforts, and though I fished on into the cooler early evening, and despite there being lots of fish right in front of me, never had so much as a tug. They really weren’t in the mood I think. A few other anglers I spoke to had had either nothing or had a couple over a full day, and I heard one of the boat anglers managed 8 over a full day ticket which i thought was impressive but I am told he was disappointed it was so slow……. He had got them all on different flies, so there wan’t any killer tactic for the day.
I retired though satisfied just to be out in the nice weather and on the water.
