I had a well-earned Friday off this week and as it wasn’t looking to windy and needing to test my repair to my Minn Kota outboard, I decided to head up to Loch Coulter for a few hours. It was fairly busy, with a couple of boats out, one readying to go, and another angler arriving as I was bringing in the next spare boat. Think I need to invest in a wee 12v water pump to help with pumping the boat out using my outboard battery, as the manual operate bilge pumps on the boats while very useful, are a bit sore on the creaky joints. Boat pumped, tackled up and ready to go, I headed out for the bay opposite where the burn comes in. The other boats seemed to be more in South Bay and East Bay.
There was a bit of a mild chop on the water and a fairly cold wind from the North East, so while it wasn’t freezing it certainly wasn’t warm. I was glad I took my heavier EWS jacket in the boat with me. I set up initially with a floating line, a beaded wet daddy on point a buzzer/midge pattern of my own design, I have been trying recently, and a small snatcher on top. Covering all bases sort of approach, you might say. Nothing was moving that I could see and the boat drifted in towards the burn, inflow. About 10 minutes in the line locked up and a very welcome fish number one, a Brown Trout about half a pound was brought to the boat, it put up a spirited fight but had taken my wee buzzer pattern. He was well hooked in the scissors and I then realised I had forgotten to lift a net at the boathouse. Not to worry I was C&R anyway. With the wee fish ( no markings, I reckon it was a resident wild fish) released I turned the boat and had another drift into an adjacent area. I had nothing on this second drift and as I motored out to look for another drift in I noticed that there was a very sheltered and calm area over on the south side of the bay and I was sure I seen a couple of fish rise.
I headed over there and trying to keep the boat drifting down the line between slightly rippled water and calm water, started to fish. It was actually quite warm in this wee pocket, and fish were rising pretty regularly. My first drift down was fruitless, but there were plenty of fish there so I figured I needed to change tactics.
Ever eager to try a dry fly I swapped to a tapered leader and put a small quill shuttlecock on point with a small Bobs Bits variant on the dropper. The New Era Rod was really in its element today and I was getting amazing range on my casting where I needed to . Near the bottom of the drift, a fish rose over to my 11 o’clock, a good distance way, I cast over to it and I was a bit slow to lift in the bright light, I didn’t really see the take until it was too late. So one that was missed but the fly wasn’t setting the heather alight having drifted right down over feeding fish without an offer. I could see there were loads of wee black midges coming off the water and they seemed to be the focus of the trouts attention. I thought maybe the fish were taking below rather on the surface, but decided to give the dries another go. I scaled right down to a size 18 black fly on point and a small Shipman’s on the dropper and decided to cast just a few rod lengths ahead of the boat so I could at least see the flies.
The second fish of the day taken on a tiny black F Fly
Back at the top of the drift I started again and a fish rose to my right a bit further out, then rose again. I decided to try cover it, I reversed the boat to get close enough and cast. Bingo, the fish took the f fly ever so gently, but was again well hooked and was a forceps job to release. These hooks are micro-barbed and so small I can’t really get a tool in to the gape to flatten it further so I found they get a firm hold trying to get it out. The fish was undamaged though, and at about 3/4 a pound I think this was another wild fish, again no markings or indications it was a stock fish.
I fished on a few more drifts and despite the showing fish I became more and more convinced that the fish while clearly feeding high up, weren’t taking so much off the top as just below, the midges were everywhere by now. I changed my set up back to three buzzer patterns to straight-line nymph. My wee midge pattern I caught the first fish on was tied on middle dropper with a cruncher above and a small red and black pattern below.
I was soon over more fish back down towards the burn and they were all around. I had a couple of bone jarring knocks and a few more subtle touches. I took the flies out the water and it was my own wee midge pattern that was getting the interest. The hook had a distinct twist to it, half the hackle was missing and it was looking ragged. I straightened it up a bit before casting out again. I soon had number three, a much better fish of about a pound maybe a bit more, this was a stockie with the clipped adipose fin. I was having a hard job getting hold of it by the boat and it kept thrashing about as I lifted it, it slipped my hand as I was trying to unhook my midge again and the line snagged on the back of the boat and it snapped- the fish was away. Not to worry, if anyone catches a decent red spotted brownie with my wee midge pattern in, can I have my fly back!
I have decided the fly needs a name, so given todays success, I have decided to christen it the Coulter Midge. I will need to tie some more and will post a SBS for those interested. It’s not a totally unique pattern, it takes inspiration from a few sources but I have to say it looks very buggy when went. A good day.
glad you managed to get the boat out without any problems and your out board is ok and you caught a few fish
Bringing a spare boat in at the start is still a bit tricky. I was a bit lucky cos someone turned up to use it behind me and I was able to give them the line from the towed boat which helped a lot. With the towed boat and my outboard on it was really hard to turn it on the mooring to bring it in. I was going flat out and not moving anywhere! I can’t use the reverse method you mentioned as the wee outboard just doesn’t have enough grunt to make any headway backwards with a boat in tow. But the rest of it was fine, getting the spare back out at the end was a skoosh. Plenty fish down in that bay just now though.
Looking forward to the SBS for the Coulter Midge. Glad you had a good day Kenny.
If you fancy a session up there sometime Mark, let me know, happy to have you on as a guest. I know you are on shifts and a weekday is probably best, if you give me an idea I can arrange a day off to go with you.
That’s very kind of you Kenny, I’ll be in touch soon and then I’ll reciprocate and we can have a bash at the Antermony. Keep well my friend.