I was up to the Lake yesterday, ostensibly it was a club outing, but being that I was the only member to turn out I hereby claim the club champion title for the year. I was accompanied by Bill Campbell who is now a former member but is a keen Lake of Menteith fisher. He fishes their midweek league so knows the water well. With the relaxation of restrictions, it was always going to be a busy day up there and indeed so it turned out with all the boats booked, and as far as I could see only two remained on the beach after the boats headed out. Sunday was to be the Scierra Pairs competition so it was clear there were a lot of anglers out practicing. Based on what I saw, I suspect some had been practicing for several days.
As we daundered out into the water, on boat 13 ( lucky for some) and having foolishly been saying to Douglas and Bill that while I have never found Lake of Menteith a particularly easy venue, it was getting now that I was catching on most visits…..talk about setting yourself up for a fall!
Despite Friday having been a warm and bright day that was comfortable enough to sit outside in until about tea time, Saturday dawned a bit grey but worse, it was bitterly cold in the wind. I had dressed in the expectation that it may be cooler early on but was forecast to be pretty much as per Friday from late morning, but feeling the chill as I got my gear together in the car park, I threw my fleece balaclava and a pair of neoprene gloves into my jacket. This was not a bad move but frankly, another entire layer would have been better. From the off until about two in the afternoon it was freezing. I struggled with my hands for quite a bit of the morning which meant I had to simply stop fishing, put my hands in my pockets and let them warm up.
We saw very few fish on our first few drifts, first over the Gap ( up the middle) then into Sandy bay and up towards the Heronry. Initially, most boats seemed to have headed for Lochend and both of us were quite happy to avoid the crowds for as much as we could. However by mid-morning and with nothing to show for our attempts with Midge Tips, buzzers and lures, or Boobies or foam bodied dries, we spotted a gap at the quite busy-looking bottom end of Gateside Bay.
As we headed over there was a boat fairly nearby and we saw both anglers in a matter of minutes net three fish and as we set up behind them they continued to hook and land fish. It was like watching a machine. It was basically, cast, strip back fast, hook a fish, net it, repeat. It looked like they had to be fishing something like a team of blobs, or lures for the speed of the retrieves being utilized. I already had a lure on point, a small Cat, and Bill rerigged for a “Ramage Cat” with a pink blob and…I am not sure what else. He cast out and the first cast was into a fish!
After a good scrap and fish of about three and a half pounds was netted. I had an orange blob on a dropper of mine so swapped it to a pink one as well, as it was this Bill caught on, but then never had so much as a touch. I was mimicking the anglers in the other boat pull for pull, but it wasn’t working for us. We assumed they were on floating or midge tip lines as the rate of retrieve from the second the line hit the water was so high a sinking line wouldn’t have time to get down.
We tried various flies and Bill had a few knocks and I was unsure but I maybe had one small but it wasn’t that evident. A few fish were however showing though funnily enough rarely on my side of the boat, but as lunchtime approached I decided to change to a floating line and tied a Black Bobs Bits on the point. The very first cast, there was a swirl and I was into a fish. This thing went like a train for the depths, It was not like last time at the lake when I hooked a big fish that took me to the backing more or less three times, this one was just diving deep. I eventually got it to a head-up position and shortened my already tight line further to keep its head up and get it to the waiting net that Bill was kindly holding for me. I stupidly let the top fly come inside my tip rod ring…..don’t stress, it will be in the net in a second, then it decided to bolt down again. For a second or two I really thought it was going to break my rod tip, but I held on tight and put as much force as I dare, the rod tip was in the water and heading under the boat but thankfully it stopped and I just got the fish into the net. A huge relief, a fish of 4lb 2oz.
The wind was changing and always cold and we both decided it might be good to get a bit of shelter so headed over to Lochend which seemed sheltered. There were no boats here now which suggested there might be no fish either. Bill though had one bump, but we drifted right along here, round the Butts, and along the rest of the shore here and had nothing.
After a spot of lunch we decided to return to Gateside which was now much quieter and as we motored across the sun finally came out, and the wind dropped. The water was fairly still by now and with such bright conditions the fish if there were still fish there, would be deep. I decided as I was needing a bit of a rest as the aches and pains made themselves know to go over to the dark side and twisted on a fish pimp Bung and three buzzers fished vertically and near enough static.
It seemed a reasonable enough idea s when it’s conditions like this your choices are limited- it’s either a heavy sinking line and lures or boobies, or it’s something that lets you fish over depth like the bung. I hate fishing heavy lines, it wears me out. So the bung it was. I use them so rarely that I managed to lose three of them over the rest of the afternoon, I think because the wee rubbers that lock them to your line were all perished and gave up the ghost after several casts!
But that didn’t stop me hooking into a second fish. It took a buzzer on a dropper about 8feet below the bung and after another strenuous fight I had its head up and Bill was again helping with the net. I ( probably wrongly ) asked Bill to take a grab at it with the net as it was near the boat and Bill managed to get half the fish in before it managed to wriggle around and slipped back over the side of the net. No big deal…except that one of my other flies snagged the net and the fish bolted and yes…snapped the dropper. One of those things, I had the sport out the fish, Bill was all apologetic, but it wasn’t his fault, I was likely premature in asking him to scoop it up.
The conditions were calm and quite warm buy now and nothing was really happening, but I managed a further massive pull but it was I realised just after I lost yet another bung, and so I clearly wasn’t tight to the fly as I felt the take and it got away.
It was though a nice day out, again always good to get out in these strange times.
Bill was speaking to the anglers that were ripping fish in later and they claimed to be fishing Di3 lines with four Buzzers, cast out, two pulls then figure of 8 them back but that really was not what we witnessed so we suspected they were giving us some pre-competition BS to hide their tactics for Sunday’s Scierra Pairs. They had thirty-five fish in the morning and eight in the afternoon!!!! Clearly, they found it easy though I suspect this wasn’t their first day on the water.
Sundays (todays) weather was Hot and sunny all day….I am glad we weren’t out there today!
