During my daily, lunchtime constitutional two things, no, three things were immediately apparent.
- It was very dull and grey (what’s new?).
- It was actually warm despite 1)
and…. And…. - IT WASN`T WINDY
REALLY!
If I could have dropped everything and gone fishing there and then, I would have. But unfortunately, I had an afternoon’s grind to get through so I started planning to get out immediately after work. Coulter would be the destination as I have spent precious little time there this year mainly due to the high winds.
I hadn’t fished this weekend for various reasons and I was actually excited at the prospect of getting out after work. Finishing time came round, I wolfed down my tea and was out before 6pm.
Heading Out
Driving past North Third I could see fish rising out on the flat calm former trout fishery. When I arrived at Coulter first off I was surprised how many cars were parked up. Secondly, it was near perfect with a nice wave. But the water level!? What the….? While it hasn’t been a great summer has it been “that” wet, the reservoir is full- like as high as I recall seeing it. What a contrast, as it has been very low since the start of the season. The angler who was on the boat pier having a cast said it was at winter capacity and I believe him. Not sure if they aren’t drawing water off or have had it held deliberately low for a while?
Anyway, the angler said to me I had missed ( by 30 minutes) a period when the fish were literally boiling on the top right across the loch. Yet, he said, he watched at least 7 Daddy Longlegs get hoovered up as soon as they hit the surface but couldn’t get a sniff from a fish with a similar pattern.
I got my gear in the boat as quickly as I could and decided just to get out, and tackle up from the boat and if I saw anything to base my set up around that. Out in the middle of the bay opposite the boat house, the wind was coming in left to right and taking the boat in towards the margins so I sat well off and assembled my rod. I heard a few fish rise behind me but never saw them, and decided initially anyway on a two fly cast of a Gorgeous George hopper and a wee slim wet fly, ( not sure of its name- I think it is a small Davy McPhail style sedge imitation but it looked exactly like the wee flies landing on the boat there and then).
The Reality that it’s Dour sets in
Once having had a few casts I find it easier to settle down and patiently sort out what I am doing and with 10 minutes without seeing a fish I decided to change my leader for a three fly cast, with a Kate Muddler on top ( I deal in a wave), a small Bibio in the middle and an Olive Cormorant on the point. While I prepared this, another boat passed and I asked how the angler had got on. “Four” he replied, the fish have been on top all day he added. His words were then kind of carried away on the wind but I think he said the fish were taking something tiny, “probably about a size twenty”.
With the three flies on I gave this side of the bay another ten or fifteen minutes but nothing showed. I have to say it was dour. I motored round into Burn Bay and the wind has turned slightly now towards the south side of the loch. In the bay, I finally saw one splashy rise of a fish, but it was behind and to the left of me, so while I tried to cover it, it was into the wind and never an easy ask. I changed my point fly for a small beaded nymph just to get a little deeper and see if that encouraged anything. It did, but it was a wee Perch. While I brought him in I saw an Osprey swoop overhead and I thought for a second it was going to dive for the Perch on my line but it made a weird screeching noise and moved on, a few minutes later it departed with a torpedo-like Trout clamped firmly in its talons.
For me though, it simply wasn’t happening. One fish was all I had seen all evening. I decided to motor back in towards the dam wall and try over there, this wind which was strengthening would hopefully hold me off it. As I did, another Osprey flew off with another fish= away in a different direction to the first, though this time it looked like it might have been a Perch it had, it certainly wasn’t big. Like I have said before, don’t let anyone tell you Osprey’s are rare, that was two different birds in one night at one loch.
As it turned out the wind turned again and was tending to blow me in towards it. Casting near the dam, finally, I had a couple of tentative pulls, very quick but unmistakably a trout. But more casts into this spot yielded nothing. The wind rose again and it actually started to get cold as well as being unusually dark for 8pm.
I was reminiscing to myself as I pondered what to change and for some reason got thinking about the first few outings I had as a teenager to lochs in the Borders and Lothians, and that it was always dark and grey but had had my first few fish ever, on a Butcher. I said earlier this season I was going to put a few trad wets on this year and so I fished out an old Butcher from my box and swapped the beaded nymph on the point for it. As I was doing this I thought I saw something move in my peripheral vision in the water towards the margins at the very end of the dam. I wasn’t 100% sure but something had definitely changed the way the waves were moving there for a few seconds. Surely a fish?
I cast over that way with my Butcher on point and it elicited nothing, The boat drifted on and was getting close to the wall, and I was considering a wee pulse of the electric outboard just to push me off when there was a pull and I was into a fish. And what a bonnie Trout it was. There are undoubtedly bigger Brown Trout around to be caught, it was about a pound, and quite a long fish but I doubt any as deep dark Gold as this one, it was a stunner of a Trout. It hadn’t taken the Butcher, no, it was on the Muddler Kate but had the Butcher played a part? I like to think so. It was getting dark now, so satisfied to have caught the one fish in just over an hour or so’s fishing I called it a night.
