I went up to Pendreich for a few hours on Saturday afternoon. The conditions looked perfect on arrival, it was overcast, there was a fairly gentle breeze blowing from the South East and it wasn’t overly cold, and best of all fish were showing. I went to get the oars and take the boat out as it was available and I seen in the book someone who had fished the morning had hit their limit, getting 10 fish in a morning.
But then I got on the boat and cast off the mooring….. the wind got up, the fish stopped rising and it turned quite bleak and blustery. In the breaks in the weather the fish started moving again and I tried all the flies that usually get me results ( GRHE, Kate McLaren, small black spiders, parachute emerger patterns) and really got no interest. I might have risen one fish on a dry though I really wasn’t sure as the glare made it hard to be precise if the fish rose to my fly or something else nearby. The wind veered round too coming now from the North and that really put a dampener on activity.
I decided to fish a bit deeper again and on one faster retreive felt a pluck, I really wasn’t sure what it was- was it a fish or just maybe a bit weed. I lifted my team of three flies to find I was down to a team of two. A wee black spider was clean off. I know the knot didn’t pull through as I tuck my knots when using Stroft. ( 2.3Kg in this case- nearly 5 lb)
A competition sized “wet fly” variant of the ubiquitous Yellow Dancer.
I wondered if movement was the key so on fixing my flies I tied a wee micro lure pattern. Now up at Pendreich there is a rule that lures are banned and the specification is you need to fish flies that fit in a Scottish clubs championship fly gauge. So I have some wets that basically follow the general pattern of some well known lures- like the Yellow Dancer, the Damsel, Humungous but are tied small and bushy with a short marabou tail. There is that wee bit movement but essentially they are nothing more than wet flies.
Nice strong Brown taken on the micro Dancer off the surface
I have had a little success with these in the past so tied on a Yellow dancer wet variant and cast it out on the point of my team. I gave it a few rapid pulls on the way back and got some jabbing pulls on the fly and it soon popped up on the surface. As I went to roll into a back cast a fish come barelling from the water right in front of the boat and grabbed the moving fly, hooking itself in the process. Not a bad fish too, over a pound and safely returned. I cast again and soon had another jabbing pull and there was a right splash on the surface. I retreived the flies and discovered my middle dropper- a Diawl Bach was gone.
The offers dried up a bit and I lifted the anchor to let the boat drift on the wind. I was soon back into pulls and knocks. It seemed the faster you retreived the more activity you got. I wasn’t finding this easy as my left hand has practically no proper grip and doesn’t like being told to move quickly. So the pain levels were rising but for now the acitvity was great fun. Three times I was broken off! ( all are barbless hooks so the fish will lose the flies easy enough) I ended up moving up to 8lb Flurocarbon as it seems the Stroft just wasn’t coping with the shock load of these fish hitting the flies so hard on a fast retreive. I had 1 fish nearly jump into the boat as I went to recast, that action of preparing the back cast seemed to commit them time and again. Mostly they missed but at range they were smashing the fly super hard. Was great fun though a bit expensive in the attrition of flies. I eventually had to pack up as I was a bit sore with the pulling but it made for an entertaining hour if a shame I didn’t net more fish.
