Another Friday off and another grey day, but this one was cold and still.The elbow is still a problem but in the absence of any other activities and with the restrictions on travel the only option for a couple of hours fishing, open to me was once again Swanswater.
District Limitations
It struck me today that while I always feel very lucky to have such a wealth of Stillwater fishing on my doorstep it’s surprising how little is actually inside the Stirling local authority area. At least in terms of commercial Stillwater fly fisheries. The only ones I could think of were Lake of Menteith and Swanswater. I am not sure if Carron Valley is on the Stirling, Falkirk, East Dunbarton or North Lanarkshire side of the boundary, though it is closed just now and its sister water, Faughlin is on the other side of the boundary (not sure if that’s the Falkirk, North Lanarkshire, or East Dunbartonshire boundary). With my current physical limitations and given the time of year than meant Swanswater it most certainly was to be.
Keeping it simple and quick
Again like a few weeks ago, I could only manage 2 hours with the arm but unlike last time I decided to give the main Swanswater loch a go rather than the wee ponds. I started about three pegs up from the dam wall and on my 4th cast I had a gentle tightening of the line which I pretty quickly realised was a fish, a nice Rainbow of about 3lb had taken the Goldie on the point- it’s become my defacto starter for ten you may have noticed when fishing for stockies and it either works quickly or not at all.
Bagging up
With this fish quickly in and released I fished on, but the takes didn’t continue. That wasn’t the case for the anglers out on the boats. There were three boats out on the loch and the one nearest to me was totally hoovering up fish. I don’t wish to take away anything from the angler, I assume he had worked out what was working, but it looked like he was simply casting out in one particular direction, straightening up his line and then you could literally see his line tighten on the drop. Cast after cast. I must have seen him net at least half a dozen fish in rapid succession. There was a boat close by him that was getting fish in a slightly less intense rate and up the loch a bit another was getting the odd fish too, but this guy was hammering them! I would be astonished if he hadn’t ended his day deep in double figures for fish netted,
All Change
Having given my spot and the peg by the dam a fish for a half hour I decided it was time to move. I headed over to the island and had a go into the channel. It didn’t take long to see that there were fish moving up and down the channel, the Golden Trout are highly visible and so you spot them, but I am of a mind that where there are Gold’s there are also likely to be less visible Rainbows and Blue Trout. While my flies were getting the Golds following they seemed reluctant to take ( as seems to so often be the case) . This finally forced a fly change on me and off came my initial trio of Goldie, Diawl Bach and Tequila Blob, to be replaced with a Black lure on the point, not exactly an Ally McCoist but not a million miles from it, a Cormorant on the middle and a Orange foam bodied Deer haired Daddy on the top dropper- I had been told that dries were working the day before.
Pretty much right away I was in. The lure had hooked me a Rainbow Trout. After a good fight, it was netted unhooked and released safe and sound. There was an old guy ( I acknowledge I am no youngster myself!) on the peg just over the bridge who came over ( maintaining a 6 feet safe distance) to see what was working. He admitted he was struggling. I couldn’t offer any real “killer” tips- it wasn’t like I was hauling them in, in rapid time myself, but he saw my fly and I gave him a Goldie to try as well and wandered off. I also pointed out the fish cruising up and down the channel. His lack of Polaroids was withholding that vital piece of intelligence. Polaroids really can be the difference between a successful day and a blank. With them you can get an idea of the reaction of the fish to a fly, are they entirely ignoring it, does a particular retrieve get them going, are there several fish in the area, are they taking but you aren’t feeling it. All critical stuff in my opinion.
Armed with a fly that was very similar to mine he continued to blether as he moved to my left-hand side to also fish the channel and in his semi distracted state; talking not concentrating, almost immediately missed a fish. I admit his conversation did distract me enough to miss one myself almost right away. But I restored focus and spotting a fish under the far bank covered it. Unfortunately, My cast was a little too accurate and I lined it while trying to reach it and the Golden Trout bolted as my line landed, but I fished the flies through and was rewarded by a solid hook up as an unseen Rainbow Trout obligingly tried to yank the rod from my hand. I laughed, the guy beside me was spitting feathers!
Stabbed in the Backside
Number three in the net. The guy next to me was getting a little more animated in his desperation to catch the fish that were evident in the water in front of us. I think it’s fair to say, the Golden Trout, you could see but couldn’t hope to touch, the fish you stood a chance with were the mostly unseen or harder to spot Rainbows. Next thing there was a lot of swearing and some annoyed talk. The old guy had caught the Goldie fly I gave him right in the arse of his fishing trousers and he couldn’t reach it…. he was a somewhat portly fellow and his trousers were hanging a bit on the low side, so he couldn’t actually reach round to his backside.
A High Risk Environment
I was then called upon to assist with the fly extraction. I am not sure what frightened me more, getting close enough to someone that they could give me Covid, or the risk that he might fart while I was trying to extract the fly. I decided the fart risk was likely greater than the Covid infection risk, so had to move very quickly to use my forceps to get the fly out the backside of his fishing trousers. Deed done and my escape made, I returned to my fishing while he sorted his flies out. A couple more casts and number 4 came to the fly and then to the net, probably a slightly bigger fish this time, the rest had all been, I would estimate between Two and a half and three pounds, this one was easily three pounds, maybe getting onwards towards three and a half.
I had a catch rate of roughly a fish every half hour over my two hours there. That’s not bad going in my view though it never really felt easy at any time, like I could do no wrong, far from it, and while I wouldn’t say my arm felt great for the casting, it never felt any worse as a result of the activity which has to be a small blessing. I went off home happy with my lot.
