I was looking forward to Saturday, the club (Stirling Castle AC) had a long-standing booking with Frandy. I and four others were willing to venture out into Glen Devon to give it a go. As I am still in shielding (but allowed out) I fished solo. This made things challenging in the conditions it must be said. I was expecting a sunny day as it had it seemingly been forecast all week, but it was cloudy when I left home, and there was a very blustery and at times strong and changeable wind in the Glen. Trying to get any sort of lengthy drift going without being pushed into a bank was a struggle. More so with me being on my own so all the weight, me and the outboard were down one end and the bow of the boat acts a bit like a sail always pushing you around. No amount of adjusting the drogue seemed to help much either. To change flies I had to either motor out to the middle and be quick or lift the engine and let the boat drift in to run aground at the side as trying to tie on a fly and manage the boat was impossible. Anyway, I digress and am jumping ahead a bit.
A Police Escort?
As I pulled off the A9 I couldn’t help but notice a police motorbike parked up on the southbound off ramp, and then, as I arrived at the gate to the fishery, there was another blocking the road from the east end of Glen Devon. I was pretty sure they weren’t there to ensure I had a clear socially distanced run to the water. Just after leaving the jetty in boat number 3, three massive trucks arrived with turbine blades (propellers) for the wind farm behind the reservoirs. They were huge. I don’t think you really appreciate the size of these things until you see them at ground level against something you can relate to.
On to the Water
With them past, it was time to get on with the fishing and it was very very hard. I was told that the water had just had a stocking of blue trout this week. This on top of a large stocking of Rainbows at the start of the season and that had not been fished for since (until lockdown started to lift). I was hopeful of a good day.
I never saw a single fish move all day. Not a swirl or splash. And the other lads reported the same. That isn’t to say fish were not caught though.
After my first drift down towards the dam wall I decided a floating line wasn’t cutting the mustard and swapped to the most submersible line I had with me, a full intermediate. I realised I had taken my bag of fast sink lines out my box earlier in the year and failed to put it back. Duh!
I got definite interest when I left the line to go very deep and the fly was literally vertical beneath the boat. Something was hitting it but not taking it as I jigged the flies. I would guess maybe a smaller fish like a wild Brown Trout. Fishing like this though wasn’t a realistic prospect as the wind was running the boat over the line faster than it could sink.
After two poor drifts I headed up to the top end of the loch. I usually find the area around the burn inflow to be reasonably productive for me. I spoke with the other lads on the journey up there. Graham in one boat had managed to land one Rainbow and Paul in the other, one Brown Trout.
Dour
Everyone was saying how dour it was. Arriving above the burn and still with the Intermediate line on, first cast into the side I had a gentle take. Initially, I thought had to be a smaller fish but it turned out to be a lean and rather nice Rainbow Trout. I would imagine it might have been a good three and a half-pound fish when stocked. This, judging by its length and that it had a nice tail and had lost its pellet fat, I suspected it had been in a while.
But frankly and not to make a story longer than it has to be without reason, this was the sum total of my sport for the day. I tried a lot of different areas and even rather optimistically tied on some dries to see if it might tempt fish up (it worked the last time I was at Frandy on a day of miserable heavy rain). But nope, not a sniff. The fish were definitely in hiding, though I am sure they are there somewhere. We all struggled, as did the bank anglers I spoke to. One fish seemed pretty much the norm and I headed back to the pier with the boat a good hour early as I didn’t see the point in knackering myself needlessly in the conditions. A wee bit of a disappointment to be honest but I guess that is why it is called fishing not catching.
