It’s a call out weekend so fishing choices are limited by phone and pager. I went up to Pendreich on what looked like a perfect fishing afternoon. Breezy enough to create a little wave, bright but not glaringly so, and reasonably warm but not roasting. Surely the fish would be on the top and feeding.
Nope.
The damselfly passengers, stayed with me on the boat for a good hour!
Nothing was moving and my starter for ten with a CDC Yellow Owl pattern was in vain where I know fish lie.. On went a three fly cast of small bushy wets and a beaded nymph on point of a fairly long leader and I tried to search out those elusive fish. I was fishing from the boat. There were lots of Damsel flies about, and a pair of “joined up” damsels, a lady and a gent land d on the side of the boat. Every time I moved the boat they would lift off and follow along landing again when I stopped.
The rescued lady damselfly dries out on my hand.
After a couple of moves and no signs of life anywhere I ended up in the North east corner of the loch. It was here I heard and briefly seen the first sign of fish life all day. It looked like a Pike’s head came right out the water in amongst the marginal plants, chasing something substantial I suspect, maybe a frog? While going through another fly change I was watching some of the bugs on the water, there are tons of insects, which makes the lack of activity of fish all the more surprising. I had small black and pale olive Sedges on the boat, some weird hairy looking thing flew past, it was so odd I would have no chance of identifying even loosely what it was, there were beetles in the water, and as I was looking at small buzzers hatching off, a larger saturated fly floated past. I wondered what it was and scooped it up on my net and lifted it out on my hand. a very wet female damsel fly, not sure if it had fallen in or got stuck hatching off. But it relieved itself of the moisture on my hand and came to life, drying out its wings on my hand. I tried to tease it onto my reel for a photo on the rod, but it was having none of it and kept returning to my hand. Eventually after a few trials of the wings, it took off and flew away.
Good deed done I thought to myself a small imitative damsel pattern may be worth a try, so popped one on point. Most of my damsels are little more than green lures with bog chain eyes, but this one was a small blue-eyed imitative nymph. I tried along the margins first, nothing. Then a fish moved about 2 yards further than I could cast, just beyond range. I decided to lift the anchor and let the boat drift 4 or 5 yards into range and lower it again.
I caught a fish!
Second cast over the area and with the point fly quite deep the line simply stopped on the retrieve. No tug or snatch, just no give. I lifted and a decent sized brownie that put up little resistance came to the net. A fish of about a pound and a half, and with a stump where one of its pectoral fins should be, I don’t know if its been stocked like that or been in the wars, but it had taken the fly very solidly and wasnt coming off easily. I unhooked it and grabbed a quick snap in case no one believed me! I caught a fish!
A decent sized Brown on a small damsel pattern
He swum off quickly on returning him. A chap I see up there quite often went by with his dogs and was saying how he has been up 14 times and blanked every time. I know he knows the water quite well and I have seen him catch regularly when all around have struggled so I know he is no “mug”, just glad it’s not just me struggling! As we talked a fish rose noisily in the same spot I had caught before. I covered it a few times but got no reaction. For the last 30 mins I let the boat drift back up the loch to the mooring and called it a day. For once not a blank! Maybe my reward for the clues given by the Damselflies?
