What a swing in conditions we have had. As you will know if you live here at all, it has not been the warmest springtime on record, in fact just a few days ago they were saying how it was one of the coldest May’s in many years. It has on the whole been reasonably dry ( though not at any time I dare to consider taking the motorbike out…then it always threatens to rain!). However the last day or two look set to change that. I have a week off now and a few days to fill before having a few days away so I decided against taking a wander down the river- it has to be pretty low with the lack of rain this last week, and to venture up to Loch Coulter. It is the second visit this year but only the first-time this trout season.
I bumped into Gordon Baird who looks after the loch at the gate as I arrived, and it doesn’t sound like I have been missing much anyway. It’s been rotten, he told me. There is no lack of fish in the water, as I saw when having a wee cast for the Pike pre-season. There were fish topping all over the loch on that day despite it being fairly cold. But, he said they had been difficult to locate and were seemingly feeding close to or on the bottom. They found a caddis larvae pattern that had been working fished right on the bottom as well as some bigger lures like Humungous or Yellow Dancer (not things I usually fish up the loch to be fair).
As per Gordons comments I did spot quite a few cased caddis myself and managed to get these images. You can see the grub as it emerges from its cocoon.
He told me where the fish seemed to be in some numbers and it totally swayed my approach to be honest. I had gone up with the intent to fish from the bank with my waders on but the wind direction ( not that it was “that” strong), and the location of the quarry, swayed me to take out a boat. I had not however bothered bringing an outboard motor or battery so it would need to be rowing.
It didn’t look too bad with the conditions to give it a go so I pulled a boat in from the moorings got my gear together and rowed out. ( I would probably regret this the next day!).
He had said he hadn’t seen any fish moving while at the loch but almost as soon as I neared the area that had been relayed to me I saw some surface activity. While I had a small lure and a couple of files on a floating line I didn’t get any initial interest with these and was keen to swap to some dry fly patterns. What to tie on was a bit of a mystery though as I was seeing practically no fly life of any note other than extremely small midges here and there. Twice only, did I spot anything bigger than a microscopic midge and to my eye they looked like small sedges. ( see photo) . However it’s a wee bit early for these flies as yet, they usually don’t become prevalent until the end of June, and early July, and even then mainly in the evening. See what you think from the photo.
There was no sign of Hawthorne flies around either, I have probably missed that phase, they are usually around for a couple of weeks in early May and can provide some epic sport if last year is anything to go by.
So I worked my way through maybe half a dozen patterns without the slightest interest shown by any fish I managed to land the fly near. This aspect was the hardest, as they were literally rising all over the place from a few metres from the bank to about 50 metres out but only now and again in each spot. Some appeared to be cruising and taking something off the top in a line. I tried looking closely at the surface but making sense of it was impossible. The water film was literally a scum of pollen, seed heads grass clippings and other flotsam and I saw nothing of an insectoid nature (except the two sedge-type flies).
A dram for Tommy
Between the fishing though I did find time to share a wee dram with the loch in remembrance of my old pal Tommy who sadly passed away earlier this year. It was Tommy who introduced me to the loch, He enjoyed my blogs and got in touch totally unsolicited when I was having a bit of a bad time with my arthritic woes and invited me out with him. We fished together maybe once or twice a season for a while until COVID struck and I saw him the last time, last summer at Coulter, when he was out fishing from a boat near the dam wall. I knew he had a few health issues of his own but was shocked when I heard he had contracted cancer and it took him shortly after. I will miss old Tam and am grateful to have known him these last ten years or so. I even tied on one of his wee midge patterns and gave that a go. Tommy was a great fly tier and we swapped flies occasionally. Unfortunately on this occasion, it wasn’t doing the business for me either.
The wind kept changing direction so I let the boat drift for some time and went onto an intermediate line and tried several lure patterns. I did spot fish moving even out in the middle of the loch but none showed any inclination to take a fly.
It had got really pretty hot (24C I believe) by Stirling weather conditions, by mid-afternoon and lest I be burned to a crisp I decided to call it a day. I spoke to one other angler as I came off, and he had managed two fish but only on lures fished really deep he said. Like me he said he couldn’t get a look on a dry fly.
So not an auspicious outing but one I had to make in memory of an old friend anyway.
