Yesterday was the Stirling Castle AC’s annual outing to Carron Valley. I think maybe we are there twice this year, not sure, but usually it is a once of.
It was a bright and almost cloudless sky but there was a North Westerly wind that was bitingly cold. Though it clouded over a bit at times through the day, and the wind continually changed direction it felt more like March than May. It was sometimes quite painful facing into the wind as we motored around the reservoir in search of fish.
Choose your quarry
Carron Valley is a very big water and at times feels like seeking a needle in a haystack looking for those Rainbows. Or should we be seeking the Wild Brown Trout that also inhabit the water, and are arguably a bit easier to find? And I guess this is the quandary that faces most anglers tackling CV, do you set out to get Rainbows (generally speaking bigger fish) or target the Browns which are on average smaller than their pellet reared relatives.
Personally, much as I love fishing for Brown Trout, when I am on a water where I have to pay for a ticket that is stocked with Rainbows, I tend to lean towards netting a few of the bigger species, at least initially as I can target Browns in other places whenever I want.
While, as the day out yesterday proved, the Browns aren’t necessarily averse to taking flies or lures we usually aim at Rainbows with, in my experience Rainbows ( especially recently stocked Rainbows) are often a wee bit less inclined to take the more traditional Brown Trout patterns we often use in Loch Style fishing.
My partner for the day was Bill Ramage, a fairly keen Competition Angler I detected, who was recently back from fishing Grafham and Rutland Water where they were hitting upwards of 30 fish per outing he was telling me.
His set up was a Di3 and an unweighted “Special” Cat’s Whiskers and his droppers were things like Crunchers and Cormorants. I had set out with a full Floating line but a weighted point fly, I decided to try the Golden Damsel from the off, but with a couple of skinny Cormorants in black and olive on the droppers.
A Rainbow out of the blue
You will need to forgive me as I am not so hot on the names of the bays and locations on CV. We started on the first big bay on the South side and to be honest never saw a fish on that first drift, we decided to have a second crack at it and out of nowhere Bill hit a smallish Rainbow nearing the end of the drift as we approached the shoreline. So at least one of us was off the mark.
We moved on to the next bay which I “think” is called Binn Bay. Nothing much happened here, I did hook one small Brown Trout on the Golden Damsel in near the edge but I never struck that hard at it, I barely felt it to be honest, and it came off just by the boat. We never had more here as far as I recall and never saw a fish move. The drift was hard to maintain as one minute the boat was drifting in to the bay the next back out again and spinning round. When the wind dropped and the sun emerged though you did feel a little heat, but it rarely lasted.
Brown Trout located
On into Carron Bay and there was a lot more activity here. Especially at the western end where there seemed to be a lot of fish rising. Bill almost immediately hooked into a Brown trout, then a second, all on the Cat. For my part it felt like all the fish were rising in Bill’s side of the boat in directions he could target, the fish nearest me were often behind the boat, and as it wasn’t competition fishing, I have no problem casting behind the boat except the wind was right in my face and it was near impossible to put a decent cast over them. Off to my right, a fish rose ( eventually- I think this was our second drift here) and I had a pull near the bank that took my point fly right off. The Leader seemed to have snapped above the Rapala Knot I secure my fly with. Having replaced the lost fly and sorted my leader out I then hooked into a fish that looked to be a good sized Brown Trout. Everything was under control, the fish was on and coming in after a wee fight when for no good reason I could ascertain, simply came off!
Finally a fish, though a bit flukey
Bill was still hooking and netting fish including a second Rainbow all coming to the Cat. I decided if you can’t beat them join them and tied on a Heavily beaded Cat and Intermediate line. I was sure I would soon be into fish but nope, nothing happened…..until I think on our third drift as I pulled the fly back to cast, my first back cast brought the submerged line back near the surface and the fly close too, I then repeated the manoeuvre expecting this time that the fly and line would clear the water into my next delivery, when it all locked up tight as I pulled back and I was into a fish. I thought it was a good Brown, and it fought like I was attached to an express train but on eventually netting it, it turned out to be a Rainbow around the 2lb mark and I quickly returned it.
One on the dry
The activity petered out and we headed over to the other side, the north shore where the wind wasn’t ideal for drifting and Bill had a couple of very small Browns here, and I decided, just because I was fed up fishing deeper and there were fish rising, to try a McPhails emerger on a floating line and did succeed on getting a second fish, a nice wild Brown to the net. However the dries were not the ideal method and I did eventually lose my entire cast snagged under the boat as the boat drifted over my line as it pirouetted round in the constantly swirling wind and we couldn’t free it.
For the last hour or so we headed back near the main dam wall and I fished a couple of lures on the intermediate and did illicit one pair of sharp pulls but neither of us had more fish.
I think, looking at the catch returns that there were only about 6-7 rainbows ( three to our boat alone) in the whole fleet but most anglers did get Brown Trout, though it felt like a hard day with the weather conditions,
