I had a planned outing to Glensherup arranged for yesterday evening for myself and my son. We don’t fish together regularly, he isn’t much of a keen fisherman, but we do enjoy a few hours in a boat together once or twice a season, where we postulate over why we aren’t catching any fish. It’s also a good excuse for a wee packed lunch cum dinner.
Bandits at 9 O’clock! The Lancaster bomber that made a strafing run over us as I pulled onto the motorway
We left Stirling, having a bit of bother to get out of town due to the road diversions in place for the Armed Forces Day event and Battle of Bannockburn 700 Commemorations. I had the privilege of having a Lancaster Bomber directly on my tail as I pulled out onto the slip road at Junction 10 of the M9 heading north.
The rain was tipping down. It was looking grim. However by the time we arrived in Glen Devon though some of the surrounding hills were shrouded in somewhat dank looking grey clouds, it was actually merely spitting.
There were a group of anglers coming off the water as we pulled up, I think maybe a club from around Dunfermline. They had had a hard time. “Barely a fish moving and though they will look at it , takes are hard to come by”. A couple of them had managed 4 fish, but there were a few singles and blanks in amongst them, some claiming not to have so much as touched a fish in their session.
This wasn’t sounding so positive, not the usual Glensherup I know and love! I had seen a few fish rise on the way in so hoped maybe that things were turning for the better. One of the anglers told me that there were fish sat very close in near the far end of the dam wall and to try there first.
The tactic likely to bring the most success I was told , was a couple of black hoppers with a buzzer in between, washing line style. The fish wouldn’t touch a Yellow Owl and were being very fussy on buzzers down to size 14 in any colour.
I decided to set up with a washing line set up of sink tip line, booby on point and two size 16 buzzers in red and green on droppers. I set my son up with a damsel with a tapered leader, on an intermediate line, as he hasn’t cast for a while as giving him a team of flies was a recipe for frustration and tangles.
We moved over to the far corner as advised and started there. I was only fishing a few minutes when I had a swirl at the booby, one of the things one of the anglers said was happening a lot. I then had a splash at I think one of the buzzers, I never felt it but did see it, though never touched the fish. Within about an hour I had maybe 4 or 5 “offers” of some form or other, culminating in one which was a very hard pull on the top buzzer, which I lifted into but somehow the fish wasn’t on. I know I have asked this before but exactly how does a fish get a size 16 buzzer into its mouth enough to pull back on it and you don’t hook it? How can than be? One of angling’s imponderable mysteries. It would seem the fish probably has the fly in its mouth and ejected before you really feel it. Maybe a case for fishing the bung, not a favourite of mine from a boat and I was told it wasn’t working anyway.
Totally still at Glensherup
My son had nothing on the damsel but as I was having some interest on the Buzzers, I tied a small buzzer on his line, and let him try that out. Single buzzer fishing is always going to be a long shot but it was likely to be tangle free for him. After about an hour and a half to two hours, we decided to stop for food. A few fish had been rising up to then, not a lot and not in any consistent fashion, nor were they ever that near the boat. I even seen fish cruising in the gin clear water beneath the boat maybe 2 feet down. We moved up the loch a little to a tree-lined bank where a few fish had shown in the margins, but other than one obvious follow, I seen the fish come all the way in with my buzzers before losing interest, I had nothing. By now James was on a dry-fly, just a wee black Bobs Bits which was successful here the last time I was up. ( speaking of which I learned that they don’t put Brown trout in the loch, all Browns are wild. So my big brown last time was a good wild fish!). After a while with nothing it was time for a further move, we moved right up the top of the loch and fished around the reedy margins, but never saw a single fish move and never touched anything either.
In typical fashion a couple of fish showed behind us up wind, so we turned round and drifted down the right hand bank from the fence line to the reeds. It went dead again. The slight wind dropped by now and it was gradually getting calmer. I was by now on a couple of dries with a buzzer between, and my son was on a sedge. I managed to rise one fish out in the middle but again it never took. The loch grew totally still and absolutely nothing moved.
Not happening at Glensherup
The fish had to be somewhere, but were proving to be very elusive. I even decided to give the dreaded, di5 sinking line and short leader to a booby out in the deep water and see if I could induce any fish lying deep to take. Nope I couldn’t. We did observe the loch is remarkably warm especially given it wasnt an especially sunny day or even that warm up there, high up as it is situated.
By about half past nine the midges were biting and there was the odd spot of rain. Not a fish had shown itself to us in hours and we had had a bit of a laugh and a good time but the fishing had been frankly crap!
Time for home and a wee dram.
Never a wasted day out with your son !, not long till they want to do their own thing , you look very relaxed In the boat Kenny
Vey true John. I dunno if that was relaxed or just bored, it really was very lifeless last night, first time its been like this for me here, usually fishes very well.