How long have I been “promising” to head to Tinto Trout Fishery? It seems like forever. I have looked at it several times but then weather forecasts ( and time) have got in the way. As the crow flies it isn’t really “that” far, I think Google maps has it at about 63 miles door to door for me, but it is a “long” 63 miles. To put it in perspective- getting to the end before I even begin, we walked off the top loch last night at a matter of minutes after 10pm and though I did stop to grab a takeaway on the road back, it was after 12:30am when I finally walked in the door at home.
Well, enough procrastinating from me. I have a week off work, no particular plans and most days are my own to do as I please. But the forecast was distinctly unsettled looking, and I looked at a visit on Monday evening initially but on Sunday to appeared I was going to be rained out and so made no attempt to book a visit. However on Monday morning while it was still raining outside a bit and threatening thunder, the afternoon/evening forecast for the Biggar area was not looking bad at all. Maybe just the break I was looking for so I called and arranged to head there.. I had also let John and Radek know I was going and while I was on my way down in the afternoon, John called me to say he too was going to come along. Like me, he had long promised to visit but simply had never made it.
It was pretty sunny and quite warm when we pulled into the car park after a cross country drive from the M74 to Tinto Hill. I think the plan was fairly obvious if unspoken, we would start on the lower lochan, which holds stocked Rainbows and Blues as well as Wild Brown Trout, then later in the evening head up to the upper lochan, Loch Cleugh to target the Wild Brown Trout. Hopefully, there would be some sort of evening rise. After all, it seemed set fair as a pleasant evening.
However, things didn’t quite go according to plan. We ventured up onto the dam wall of Loch Lyoch and there were a couple of anglers who had been there all day. I suspect they were regulars. They had not touched a fish and said it had been very windy and blustery and that the conditions we were encountering were the best of the day so far. John started fishing at the left-hand end of the dam wall, I went across to the other end and had a few casts there but did not last too long as the wind, while not really bad, was blowing the line in towards me, which is never a great feeling when flinging a three fly cast around. I soon opted to move around to the top end of the west bank. Here, I had the wind a little more in my favour, and in fact, in the top corner, there wasn’t that much wind at all. There were lots of insects about here as well and you could see them coming off the relatively calm water in near the margins. Surely there had to be fish here too?
I fished for about 30 minutes but was getting nothing and saw nothing move either. I then moved again around the corner and waded out over an easy to walk on shale bottom. I was about 20metres out from the bank and fishing easily the same again out into the loch. By now I had swapped my wet flies to a team of buzzers in a straight line set up, and the heavier point fly was still picking up weed all that way out. It wasn’t a big problem but was indicative of the shallowness of the gin-clear water. I did, while fishing spot one fish move about 20-30 metres out into the loch opposite a bush on the easterly bank. John had fished around a bit himself and hadn’t had anything up to this point either. I told him where I had witnessed a fish so he headed there.
He was fishing there a matter of minutes when he shouted over that he was into a fish. Like myself, he had noticed how warm the surface water was. I had considered changing to an intermediate line but as I was already snagging weed on the full floater where I was, that didn’t seem a worthwhile option. John was over deeper water and had made the leap to a Di3! I have to be honest and say I rarely carry a conventional sinking line never mind a Di3 when bank fishing still waters!
By the time I worked round to join him under the rather picturesque Scots pine Trees John was into his second fish, both had taken a small black Lure of his own tying, but not a million miles away from an Ace of Spades. The wind was a bit of a pain though by now and seemed to get both more blustery and colder as the evening wore on. It was apparent looking out west that there was a rather nasty looking weather front pushing through over Ayrshire way. The sky was black and you could see the rain in the distance. So while the wind was annoying at times, the weather was staying fairly tolerable for us. I did though decide to retire to the car after John pulled his third fully finned Rainbow into the net, to get my own Di3 from my boat box, and also to don a fleece as frankly I was feeling the cold. When I got back John even sportingly offered me his fly but it made no difference I never had a touch even when I knew I was getting down and occasionally ticking bottom.
But having said that interest dried up for John too and we mulled over what we would do next as it got round to 9 pm. We were both a bit knackered chucking heavy lines into the wind and we did not think the top loch was going to be any better, but we were here so may as well at least take a walk up and have a look at it.
To be fair when we made it up to Lochan Cleugh, it is about a 10 minute uphill trudge, the wind did not seem any worse and the far end of the small loch looked fairly sheltered. I stopped to take a few photos ( there was a bonny view with the sun going through the distant storm clouds and the Scots Pines silhouetted against the light- they came out rubbish as I really needed a tripod and graduated filter with me- doh), and John went round =d the bank and started fishing. He, like me, still had the Di3 fitted. Almost right away he was into a fish, a bonny Brown trout about a pound or so on I think, a Humungous. I gave my Di3 a few throws but it seemed a bit shallow for such tactics and the water temperature was noticeably cooler, so hopefully, the fish would not be that deep? In fact, I had noticed a few fish rise in the margins further up as I fished.
I decided to return to a floating line and a couple of wet flies. I kept moving around and I was seeing more fish move in the shallows and there were a few huge big sedges about. Sod it, time to try a dry fly. I had however gone and left my rucksack and net lying on the bank back where I had started fishing here as I never really expected to be staying long. So I only had the flies that were in my fly patch on my jacket to choose from. I tied on an Orange foam daddy and an F Fly and gave that a cast. Four casts and four times a fish rose but did not take, the F Fly! I was sure it wasn’t a tiny fish as I saw the fish come head and gills out the water to take something off the top a few metres further along. I changed flies again to a Double Decker- for no other reason than I happened to have it on the fly patch and honestly, I can’t remember what else. Nothing.
John shouted to me that it was dead and time to go, I decided to tie on a small black lure I had in my patch as a last gasp effort. I cast it out and there was a tug and finally, I was hooked into a nice brown trout of about a pound to a pound and a half, a wee bit larger than the one John had earlier. Safely returned once I got the hook out, I walked back. John was throwing his Di3 over the dam wall into the area of the spillway while he waited on me catching up and managed another smaller Brown almost right away. But it was pretty windy again and it was getting dark. Time to go but I won’t leave it so long to come again!
