The unseasonably cold and windy weather once again influenced my decision for fishing location tonight. I decided going out earlier would be potentially a bit busy what with the Monday holiday so I thought a few hours late afternoon would allow the crowds to dissipate. My first option would have been Pendreich or Loch Coulter but the wind was pretty gusty and I reckoned it would be hard going up either hill.

I had a river fishing plan too but this too was going to be heavily influenced by the wind and sadly my feet, which are none too clever at present. I have plans to visit Glenbervie and Wellsfield as both are places I haven’t been for a while and Wellsfield now has the added attraction of Catch and Release, but it’s up a hill, so windy I opted in the end for Swanswater, yeah its local, but they have boats which I rarely fish from and this would allow me to fish with the wind and rest my feet as needed. It wasn’t busy really when I arrived and once tackled up I grabbed a boat and as  there were two others out already I had limited places to choose so opted to fish down by the corner of the island near the dam wall. The water was a lot more coloured up than I anticipated. I was also mindful that I have yet to catch a fish at Swanswater from a boat! Would the duck be broken tonight?

The fish are deep Alastair told me and it didn’t sound like catches were fantastic in the cold. Saturday had apparently been awesome with the much warmer weather and I could believe it as Pendreich had a lot of fish moving too.

Flexi-floss buzzers

A selection of flexi-floss buzzers I tied after the outing to Glensherup with Tommy

I started on a floating line with two buzzers but felt I wasn’t getting down deep enough so shortly after starting added a third and put a heavier beaded bloodworm pattern on the point. This was getting down and after about an hour I had a solid pull and first fish on. After a good fight I netted a solid three pound plus Rainbow which took the middle dropper, a flexi-floss buzzer like friend Tommy used to such good effect at Glensherrup a week or so ago. This fly I reckoned was fishing about 4 feet down.

I decided to change to an intermediate line to try get the flies in the 4 feet zone longer. I took the heavier fly off point and replaced it with a lighter variant as the line would now control depth. However I felt now I was fishing too deep as I was bringing up weed occasionally so decided on a further line change to a line I rarely use, a Neutral Density line. This was when I fluked number 2. With the line wound in and the top dropper fly at the tip rod ring I was looking in my box for the ND line. I then felt a tug on the rod and would you believe it but a fish had taken the bloodworm which would have been hanging maybe a couple of feet under the boat! This was a bigger fish than the first and I would guess getting on for close to 3 and a half to 4 lbs. It was not for coming in quickly so took a minute or two to net though I played it almost entirely with the butt section of leader in the rod rings.

Rainbow trout

The two Rainbows from the evenings fishing both 3lb plus fish

Once released I was able to get the line change finished and first cast I got two strong pulls a couple of feet down. I felt my hunch about line and depth were now right. However after the encouragement of the pulls I never got anything else here and as the other boats were on the move as they were finding it hard going too, I decided to have a move up to the buoy near the boat moorings. My second cast got a couple of pulls. The wind was still very gusty but on the odd occasion it dropped I was able to cast into the wind and on one cast just as I started to roll off to cast again I hooked a fish. It leapt clear of the water but I didn’t have a good tight line to the fish and the jump got it off the hook. Unlucky as it was clearly a good fish- maybe a five pounder.

After this I got one more solid pull that I was sure had connected and hooked the fish but then the line went slack. I was pretty surprised. After this the wind got much colder and what little movement of fish was apparent seemed to dry up. By 9 I had had enough as had the other anglers and I headed for the car. It was a very slow , cold night but I felt I had done about as well as I could in the circumstances as looking round I don’t think many other anglers were catching either.