This weekend I wasn’t hopeful of getting out at all, being on call but with the weather reasonably fair on Saturday, it looked warmer than it felt, I stayed near the doors and headed up to Pendreich for probably the last time this season.
I expected it to be busy but in fact there were only a couple of anglers there. One on the dam and another getting ready to take the boat out.
I had to walk up as I had borrowed my wife’s car on the condition I don’t take it up the track through the forest, and having got there I realised I forgot my keys so even if I wanted to, I couldn’t get in via the gate anyway. The water was close to flat calm and what little breeze there was, seemed beneficial to the South bank, so I opted to head that direction. Just after the boom I spotted a fish move so set up with a single Daddy longlegs gave it a cast. The fly was ignored and the fish appeared to keep rising further along the wall so I gave chase and tried a number of casts and flies to where I thought it might be based on the string of rises but it never showed any interest.
A bit of a fluke, the last brown of my season was barely ( if at all) hooked and inattention nearly meant I missed it!
Returning to where I had left my net and bag I tied on a quill emerger pattern and after stopping to blether to a passer by put the fly out to where I had seen another couple of rises. To be fair though the fish along the dam wall and the two rises in front of me at this point had been the sum total of the movement I had seen anywhere. Dour it most definitely was. I cast the fly out and left it just sitting there. As I waited patiently for something to happen my phone bleeped and I dug it out my pocket to see if it was anything important being as I was on call. I heard a slight plop and looked up- where was my fly? Only receding rings where it had been. I lifted the rod and was astounded to find the fish was still on! I managed to get the fish to my net with little difficulty and was astonished it had stayed on at all as the hook was literally hooked round the fishes top jaw and wasn’t hooked into the fish at all. Only the tension of the rod and line kept it on as far as I could see. A quick picture and it went back after a rest in the net. I hate catching fish on the dam wall as it’s hard to deal with catch and release as you would choose to do but away it went.
Going back- the hook literally fell out its mouth.
I was thinking of trying the south bank but by then there had been at least half a dozen dogs in and out the water there, their owners throwing balls and sticks in for them to fetch so I felt my chances of a fish were non existent. So I went to the north bank, and tried there. In the hour I spent there I had one tug to a trio of flies topped by a Kate McLaren, but that was the lot. A few more fish were showing by the time I was ready to call it a day but the water was mirror smooth and tempting them was never going to be easy. I felt quite fortunate to get the one I had had. It’s been a pretty good season up at Pendreich this year.
