With such an uncharacteristically bright ( for this winter so far ), dry and relatively mild day yesterday, I headed out to Faughlin, part of the Carron Valley fishery “portfolio”, for a wee cast yesterday afternoon. I have to say I wasn’t really sure that Faughlin was open over the winter. I can imagine it freezes up a fair bit in normal winters, but I suppose this is no ordinary winter. Temperatures have barely kissed zero on more than a handful of occasions and I was looking at the overnight temperatures on my Potting Shed thermometer, and last May was colder than January has been so far!
I went to pay to fish and had a blether with Jimmy who owns the fisheries, and also some passing anglers. By all accounts fishing was slow. The lad I spoke to coming off was saying he had had a few knocks, and I thought he said he had netted a couple of fish but later on based on what some others said, I think maybe I misinterpreted him and in fact he had had knocks but hadn’t got any to the net. The sun was shining, there were about half a dozen anglers on the water ( half on the two boats) and it looked nice. But as you can imagine there wasn’t anything visibly moving, the breeze when it did blow, was cold and it seemed the fish were deep.
So depth charges at the ready I went to fish at the point that juts out into the loch. It’s obviously being used as a roost/nesting spot for the Swans that hissed at me as they passed ( I hate Swans- just don’t trust them at all) and it is pretty slippery and messy around there. The platform was all slippery and while it gives a few additional metres reach into the loch I wasn’t prepared to risk an early bath for more than a couple of careful casts.
I had opted to start with the full intermediate line and see how that fared, with a small lure on point and a couple of buzzer patterns up the droppers. The wind was such that I could cast across it with care and out into the main loch with no issues. The main basin is going to be pretty deep, I have no idea the actual depth but it has to be at least 10 metres….you only need to look at the height of the dam wall as you approach Faughlin to see that.
I was finding that my casts were fishing Ok for a few metres ( having let things sink, but then I would quite clearly catch on snaggy weeds as the flies edged closer and I suspected there was a shelf or at least a change in the severity of the slope further out. The only real way to get over that and be able to fish the deeper water ( which was over 20 metres out) had to be with a floating line and a long leader fished vertically…..yes, my pet hate, the Bung! I could see this coming in my “future” but I stuck at the lure and Intermediate for a wee while more, until the constant clearing of weed from the flies got to be too much of a chore.
So on went the floater and a long eighteen foot leader with a fish pimp indicator placed about 4 feet down the butt section of the leader. I fished a team of bloodworm type buzzer patterns. On point a hot Orange buzzer, the dropper had an Apps Bloodworm and the top dropper was a simple small red buzzer. The lad I had talked to earlier as he left had said the fish had grabbed his Bloodworm patters, and in winter it tends to be useful as fish clamp to the loch bed and feed on leeches and the like.
Nothing, so I started changing things about, I tried a team of three more regular buzzers, leaving the red one on point and a black and a Glass Buzzer. Nothing there either. Then I tried a Okey Dokey ( I need to tie some more of these as they are getting a bit tatty looking) and also a beaded Egg Patter ( another “fly” I dislike fairly intensely). They also cast out like a sack of spanners and I find I end up with more tangles than ever fishing these. But having said that, I did notice the wee Fish Pimp bob under. As I questioned myself, has that gone under or is it the weight of the flies or something else pulling it down in the slightly rippled surface, I decided really I ought to lift to find out. There was really too much slack between me and the fly and as I lifted fairly slowly it must be said, as if I was wrong I didn’t want to be recovering the flies too far if they were fishing in a decent depth, I felt the characteristic tug of a fish.
Trying to get tight though was a big ask and with the rod lifted high above my head I still needed to get about another four feet of line in….. So yes, whatever was there was soon off again. I have no real indication of what it took. But I stuck at this for about 15 more minutes and the difficult casting got me fed up enough to stop.
I decided to take a wee walk and went round the loch and fished near the boat shelter on the far bank but the wind was more of a hassle here and I was struggling to get any distance in the swirl.
After about 20 minutes fighting the wind I noticed a space over near the fishery cabin and went over there to fish. I spent the rest of the session with a full sinking line and tried a few different lures and even a Booby on point as an inverted washing line set up. I spoke to a couple of other anglers including ones in the boat who said they had been there all day and nothing had been caught. Everyone had a “bump” tale but the fish apparently were staying deep and not much in the mood for taking. Probably a Di7 from a boat with a couple of Boobies was going to be your best chance on a day like this.
