I went for a wander up the hills to have a look and a wee cast over the second of the two lochs I have access to on a local estate. Never been up this far up the hill and when I got there imagine my surprise when I found it, I would guess, over half empty! It looked like the surface of the moon (if you ignored the water- which then I guess made it resemble a gravel pit).
I don’t know if there is some kind of going on with the dam, a few weeks back the lower loch was well down on normal levels. It seems they are draining the upper loch into the lower one and the lower one is overflowing into a burn- so it’s not like they need the water. With the rain so far this summer I was really surprised to see the upper loch so low!
Like fishing on the moon
So this left me in a bit of a quandary, have a go here or return to the lower loch, I decided that if the water was so low and any fish were concentrated in a smaller space it might be quite fun, plus a bit of a breeze got up by the time I walked up there, and it was a little sheltered in the empty loch.
I saw one fish rise near my location but it never came to any of the dries I offered and only once with a nymph on did I get the slightest of pulls. Like the fish was gently tugging the tail of the fly. I could see the leader tighten to it but there was nothing there to lift into.
After over an hour of trying different things and by now getting wet with the incessant rain I moved down over the dam to the lower loch. Here the wind was screaming in and casting was all but impossible so I made my way round the lower dam and into the field beyond. Maybe this was not so good an idea as there was a bull with horns staring right at me! I found a way over the barbed wire and wall back to the lower loch quite quickly!
The lower loch- there were fish under the trees on the left out of reach
I was able to cast from the east dam but nothing was doing and but for a few fish rising under some trees well beyond reach of rod and line it was rather pointless and I called it a day. But still interesting and better than sitting in the house waiting for the pager to go.
