The plan had been to go somewhere different this week, but the weather got  off to a rubbish start with nearly an inch of rain on Monday and waking to a dry and bright but very windy day Tuesday.

I  had seen the forecast and not reckoned on getting out at all Tuesday and so had arranged to go do a bit IT support for one of my web clients. Once this was done it was still dry, and still windy but I had time for a cast, and in the event the only place I could think to go out the worst of the wind was Swanswater.

I arrived around 2 and it was pretty quiet. I checked out the main loch and it was brown like strong milky tea, not my cuppa so I decided to spend some hours fishing the wee ponds which were marginally clearer.

To cut a long story short there was nothing moving really for most of 3 and a half of the 4 hours or so I was there. I never touched a thing, never seen any of the few other anglers touch a thing and never even seen a fish weighed in. I tried, dries, buzzers straight lined, buzzers under an indicator, nymph/Diawls, lures, even dare I say it a Dayglo Pink FAB on a short leader on an intermediate line, and then more dries and nymphs! The last 30 minutes up at the Mill pond seen the water clear a bit, and a few of the Golden Trout Alastair has been stocking were moving around and occasionally rising. I tried out a few dries on them but got no interest. They were chasing something subsurface though that much I could see andI  tried a few imitative and less than imitative patterns fished about a foot below the surface and though I seen a few fish turn to the fly none took. The evening seemed to calm a bit and got arguably milder and I suspect it would have fished well into the later evening, but I left empty handed and without having had so much as a knock from a trout. I did hook this obliging wee chap in the meadow pond though. His eyes were bigger than his belly- he took a Humungous!

A Pugnacious Perch

This wee Perch took a Humungous that was about quarter the length of the fish!