A final day off in the current “Annual Leave Year” I had hoped based on the forecasts earlier in the week, that it might be a little warmer, a little more spring -like.

Options, options

As I got my gear together on Friday morning, but for a bit of a breeze, it looked on the face of it, like Thursday, set reasonably fair. The choice was river or stillwater? The works up at Pendreich are finally complete but that breeze, might be a gale up there, and I doubt there would be much sport to be had anyway. I didn’t fancy Coulter, and it had been suggested to me that Glenquey in Glen Devon was worth a visit. Though I have never been there (I will get there sometime this season, I promise), again that stiff breeze might be a real nightmare knowing some of the waters in Glen Devon, and the wind channels they become.

I decided to head off to the River Devon. Like the River Carron, it isn’t renowned as an “early” river, and I was not expecting much if any, sport, but I really wanted to reacquaint myself with the lie of the land, as it has been several years since I last fished it. In fact it is longer than I realised, it was 2012 the last time I was there.

It is funny how your minds eye view of a place differ from the reality. My memories were a collage of spots that all appeared to be in different places from where they actually were when I went back this week.

Short distance, long drive

Driving along the road heading out through Alva and Tillicoultry, the sun made an appearance and I was feeling more confident that my luck might be in. A little heat might see a few insects appear and with that the merest possibility of a trout. Though only 18 miles, it is a long 18 miles, it takes me nearly as long to get up the Devon as it takes to the Clyde Valley! Hopes were dashed though by the time I reached Dollar, as it got decidedly grey and gloomy looking and a few spots of rain appeared.

By the time I reached the spot where I planned to tackle up, and it took me 10 minutes to find that! (I “thought” I knew where I used to park but then when I got there I was wrong!) and exiting the car, I realised that there was a very strong wind blowing right downstream.

Having assembled a rod and got the waders on, I decided to leave fly choice until I was bankside. The river was very clear, and held lots of temptation for an early cast but it is a water where fish can be very spooky and just marching up to the bankside will almost certainly result in nothing. I had decided to stay back, head down river a good distance and work my way upstream.

Having said that I came across a spot that in my recollections wasn’t where I thought, and looping around so as to come at it from below I decided to approach. The wind could not have been in a worse angle and frankly casting into it was impossible with the line being blown back with each cast.

Sunlight on the hills
While it remained grey and windy all day on the river, the hills beyond had sunlight

As I was now waterside I decided not to thrash on up this section but to do a little kick sampling and see what was on the bottom. The usual myriad of
Heptagenid, stone clingers were there. Amongst them, and I wish I had taken a photo at the time now ( it was so dark and grey I didn’t think it worth it), were quite a few that were clearly of that order, but were jet black with fully formed wing buds, these were about to emerge clearly.

I know that face, remind me….

The wind though was impossible, so I carried on down the river. A few areas fell into view that were at once familiar to me, but like a face you see across a crowded train station at rush hour….”I know that face, who is it again?”.

After a fair walk, I reached a bend in the river and this at least gave a little protection from the wind. It was now after twelve and while it wasn’t freezing, you could not call it warm. For my part I was comfortable enough with several layers on and a walk behind me, so decided to stop, sit on the bank, staying low and see what happened.

A Robin red breast
This wee Robin kept me company on the pool watching the insects get swept down to the eddy, in the corner.

Almost right away I spotted a fly surfing down the food lane in front of me and watched as it was sucked into a back eddy. As I remained watching more appeared, at times there were three of four at a time in the slowly rotating eddy behind a bush over some fairly deep water with sheltering rocks below. Surely a lie for a hungry trout.

I watched at watched and nothing rose, nothing appeared to move.

The “hatch” such as it was, went on for a good hour and a half, with flies appearing on the foam line in ones, twos and three’s getting gathered up in the eddy, then eventually swirling down into the next glide, as they started to lift off. It was hard to see clearly what they were, I never got closer than about 15 feet of one and the light was poor, but I am pretty sure these were LDO’s judging by their paler wings and two tails.

Large Dark Olives
I think these were LDO’s was hard to really see in the bad light and this image is fairly grainy to compensate

I cautiously tried fishing some suitable patterns through the deep water in front of me up the food line but never had so much as a sniff of a fish, which kind of surprised me, but I guess shouldn’t this early on.

I want a little further down and tried the glide below fishing the flatter water down stream with a team of small wet flies and nymphing the deeper holes above me. if there was anyone home they weren’t giving any indication of it.

What’s that sound?

If you spend time on rivers you will know that you become very attuned, very quickly to the regular sound of the water around you and your senses pick up on anything that disturbs that rhythm. A couple of times in this area I thought I heard something disturb that beat but on looking where I perceived it to come from I could see no sign of upset water. Was it a fish? The sounds seemed to come from exactly where I would expect, maybe that was wishful thinking on my part, but I did my best to fish these spots with no response.

After about 2 hours in this area ( not fishing hard, being quite selective actually) the fly life seemed to have dissipated, and I made my way back up the river, having a wee fish through some channels and runs I think are probably too fast to hold much prospect of a fish just now, but they were good opportunities to get a feel for the topography of the bottom, which would be harder to do if there was a real chance of a fish later in the season.

I went out with little prospect of catching and that feeling was justified but it was good to reaquaint myself with old haunts, and I look forward to more visits this season.