Number one about a pound and an amputee
I was up to Bridge of Allan this afternoon for a few pleasant hours in the warm sunshine though the forecast I had seen predicted it would cloud over as the afternoon wore on. As I drove up the hill it did indeed turn from bright sunshine to overcast, and up at the loch it was fairly breezy blowing off the dam wall. There were two other anglers out, both on the bank and that allowed me to take the boat. They told me it had been livening up when the wind dropped and the sun came out then the fish seemed to vanish when the wind came up and the cloud cover resumed. Kind of surprising but it seemed a perfect afternoon for fishing.
Number two was a solid fish and took a fair bit line in the fight. Another amputee
I headed out and just let the boat drift around in the middle, as I tied my team of three flies on, a Kate McLaren on top dropper, a Diawl Bach on Middle and a gold beaded hares ear on the point the wind dropped, and indeed the fish were showing here and there though in the main they were leaping rather than rising, which always makes me wary. They didn’t appear to be feeding off the top.
I had cast maybe three times when I got my first take. The fish wasn’t for showing itself and hugged the bottom for a good couple of minutes and pulled the boat towards the weeds in the corner, by which time I managed to get it up, and to my surprise it wasn’t that big a fish, maybe a pound at best. And missing its pectoral fins. I have seen this in the past and looking at the fish it is clear this isn’t a recent injury, it’s pretty much healed into a neat stump and I can only put it down to poor “handling/grading” at the fishery, with the fish loosing its fins when it was young.
The fish still put up a good account of itself and after a short rest in the net went back fine, it had taken the goldhead. I relocated the boat and set down the anchor to stop getting dragged again…… if I was lucky enough to catch again!.
Number 3- stumpy
Not two casts later and I had a second fish on. This was a much stronger fish again and was stripping line from the reel at a fair pace which made for fun. I soon slowed it though and it was in the net pretty soon a comfortable one and a half pounds of Brown Trout, this one had one half fin and one stump!
Within maybe 10 minutes I was into a third, again on the point gold bead hares ear, and it made a dash under the boat where it was resolutely refusing to come up from under. I did start to get some line on it and it was clearly in sight and another fish of similar size to number two when without warning simply came off, maybe the hook pulled out not sure, nothing lost or broken.
The last of the 4 that came to the net, again with a missing pectoral fin
While fish continued to make their presence known on the whole the fishing quietened down, lest I think they were all suicidal, but I did get a number of pulls and a few swirls at the Kate, then eventually a fish took it. Another one pound fish, another finless wonder.
Then after some more follows and pulls I got number 4 to the net, another one pounder and again with fins in less than present condition.
Things went much “slacker ” after the fourth and while I did get a few splashy pulls at my flies and though I changed things round a wee bit, with some variations on a theme to mix the fish up a bit, in case they were getting bored with the same three flies, I never managed any more. Pretty pleased with four to the net and one lost, so I mustn’t grumble though the state of the fish leaves something to be desired.
