With (yet another) Friday off, and with some plans later in the afternoon I found myself looking out the window at a reasonably mild day with about 4 hours or so to fill. It had to be fishing, after all a new season is upon us, but I wasn’t for any travelling to eat into my day and as I say I had to be back for a specific time in the afternoon, I didn’t want to be snarled up in the vagaries of Friday afternoon traffic on the M80.
If you spotted a wee video I shared on my Facebook page, you would have seen the huge fish being stocked at Swanswater this week. With the Brown Trout season open they are now putting some in and there were some you could have fitted a saddle on the back of. Also some big Tigers and a new variety called Spartic Trout which are apparently a cross between a Brook Trout and a Char. I know there are some that would turn up their noses at Brown Trout stockies as a quarry, but for me, it just adds to the interest of a day out at a Stocked fishery such as Swanswater and I decided with the ease of getting there just to pop along the road and give a few flies a swim.
It was actually dare I say it, almost warm feeling out of the wind, ( there was a fairly stiff breeze at times and was one of the reasons I opted not to head further up the hill to Loch Coulter which can be very exposed), and as a result, this brought a lot of anglers out. The car park was fairly busy and all the boats were out on the main water when I wandered up there having bought a 4-hour ticket.
I nearly stopped at the edge of the dam wall to start there but then noticed that the island wasn’t looking too busy with just two anglers on the corner facing the main loch and no one fishing the channel. That would do me. The Channel can be an all-or-nothing spot in my experience, but I reckon I have had more good days than bad fishing there. One of the anglers on the corner facing the outflow was long-time Swanswater regular Nan Morrison, and as I approached I realised she was playing a fish. Not a small fish either, it was probably one of those big Brown Trout and as I took up my place facing the channel I had to see what was going to happen. I did shout to ask if she needed a hand with a net, but she either didn’t or never heard me, but she seemed to be coping anyway….then there was a splash….the fish became unhooked literally on the edge of the net and it was away!
And to be honest this was to be a bit of a theme for the fishing on Friday. I saw numerous fish hooked all around the loch but a lot were being lost either in the fight or at the net.
I cast my slow intermediate line with a team of the wee sparkly golden damsel thing on point, a Pink blob on the middle dropper and a bushy wet fly/hopper on the top dropper. On my third cast under the branches of an overhanging tree on the roadside of the channel, a graveyard for numerous leaders and flies, as I retrieved back there was a very hard pull and my first fish was on; a very feisty Rainbow. This thing was not for coming in and it put up a fight way beyond its size, probably no more than 2 and a half pounds, but it had a tail like a shovel. A really beautifully conditioned fish but it did come to the net in the end and the fly literally fell out the side of its mouth as soon as the line tension was released.
The very next cast I landed in almost the exact same spot and was met by another yank, and another Rainbow trout was on, though this one wasn’t to make it to the net, it slipped the hook for no obvious reason other than I suspect it was probably nipped just in the tip of the mouth and the hook probably pulled out. Within maybe another 3 or 4 casts in pretty much the same spot, I was in again. This fish did I am relieved to say, stay on though it was probably a fish between 2 and 3 lbs but put up a huge fight, with a load of head banging and shaking going on and again as soon as I did get it to the net the hook was only just nicking the skin at the tip of the fish’s mouth.
I lost a fourth fish in much the same way as the second only a few casts later, then had several very hard pulls but never hooked up before it went quiet. I will add though, over to my left on the very corner of the island where it faces the roadside pegs further along, a fish rose several times right under the bramble-type bush close into the bank. I tried covering it and landed the fly pretty much on the right spot maybe three times but had no signs of interest before the rises stopped.
I did move for a while onto the corner platform and while a few fish rose in front of me, again never had any signs a fish was interested, though it did give me a view of an angler at the roadside peg who arrived as I was fishing and was soon hammering fish every other cast. Clearly, there were several fish in the channel and further along. The roadside used to be my favourite spot, but recent seasons have seen a lot of weed render it almost unfishable and it’s definitely less popular these days. I imagine with spring yet to arrive the weed isn’t an issue currently. The angler probably lost as many fish as he netted it has to be said, as I say it became a bit of a recurrent theme on the day, but he must have put 6 fish at least in the net, some pretty big ones.
With activity definitely quieter here, I decided to move off the island and went and fished by the bridge. I had a cast over several riseforms in the shallow water behind the bridge as well as in the channel between the bridge and the island before commencing on the platform itself. Over the next hour or so a few fish moved inside casting distance, there were quite a few about but nothing was for taking and as far as I could see it was generally fairly quiet around the entire water for about 2 hours. It only goes to show how you could arrive to fish for a couple of hours and entirely miss all the sport, or have a field day; timing is everything.
I did stick with the slow intermediate line but changed my flies trying buzzers fished very slowly as well as a few other lures and even nymphs but nothing was for taking. One fish seemed to be cruising back and forth along a fairly regular line for a good half hour, and though I never really caught sight of it, it was coming to take something ( I suspect tiny wee midges almost like green fly believe it or not) off the top now and again. I put my flies near it several times but again nothing.
With about an hour to go, I was toying with heading to some of the wee ponds by the car park, when the angler fishing behind Nan hooked a fish from the island. I decided to return to where I started and so wandered back to the island. Nan told me she hadn’t touched a fish since that one that came off earlier and she was I think ready to take a break and head for lunch. I cast out to roughly where I had success earlier and immediately was into a fish! …..but ah, another one that was to let go of the hook without any real warning.
Then the fish that rose on the corner earlier started again. I decided again to give it a cast, I was fishing a simple small olive Damsel pattern and my first cast appeared to go unheeded but still the fish rose, and then a second cast seemed to get snagged on the bottom. I pulled on the rod and line to see if it would unsnag but then the line moved to the right. That was no snag, that was a fish. It stayed very deep and moved slowly, there had been no sensation of a take, but I was most definitely into a decent-sized fish now. The way it behaved, led me to no doubt I was hooked up to a big fish. There was no head shaking, no big run-off with my line, just slow powerful movement to the right then it turned and went left, then it eventually woke up….
It moved off rapidly to my right and started to thrash at the surface and it was at least a 6lb+ fish, a Rainbow then after much back and forth it took off on a colossal tail walk and leap, I managed to keep the fish on then just as I thought it had to be well hooked, it all went slack when I least expected it and it was off. No flies bent, no line broken it simply came undone for some reason or other.
Oh well, not to worry. Arrrrrrgh! 🙂
I was able to redeem myself with a third reaching the net, the biggest of the three that made it in safely, between 3 and 4lb of full tailed Rainbow, probably on the lighter end of that range but another good fighting fish in fantastic condition.
I once again moved to the corner which was by now actually boiling with fish and cast over several, getting some big pulls but no hookups before I managed to lose my entire cast into that bramble bush I mentioned earlier. I could have set up another leader, I had about 30 minutes left but the rain started to make an appearance, quite heavily in fact and I was more than satisfied with my day as it was, so took my leave but had a great few hours fishing away my Friday.
