Taking what comes

Scottish Nationals Heats

When I got out my scratcher late on Friday morning, after a night shift, I had a text from the competition secretary at Stirling Castle Angling Club asking if I would be interested in being part of a team to fish the Scottish National Clubs Championships heat at Lake of Menteith. Being an angler of relatively short experience, I was flattered to be asked. I was unsure if I would be able to hack it to be frank though due to recent health issues but when I heard it started at six in the evening to dusk, I thought I could probably manage that with it being on a boat and seated for most of the time- if my hands would allow me.

Cautious OK

I gave a cautious OK, ordinarily I would be biting your arm off but my “condition” seems to vary day-to-day and I did not want Saturday to be a day when my hands refused to work properly!

Anyway things seemed bearable as I packed and left for Menteith. The day had started promisingly and seemed set fair (ish) but the wind got up a bit and there were some squally showers, by the time I arrived to the busy car park at Lake of Menteith Fishery there was a stiff wind blowing from the west over the loch and it was quite rough though not unfishable. It looked “well” challenging.

Biscuit Boobies

Word was that the flies doing the damage were “Biscuit Boobies” and Diawl Bachs. I am not much of a Booby angler, and frankly hate tying them with the stupid big eyes, though will grant you they have a lot of uses tactically and are fish catchers in all sorts of conditions. I just am not much of a lure angler.

Being a competition the rules limited fly size and the use of added weight ( beads) so nothing “stupid” was going to run away with it like huge big Humungii or 3 inch bog chain eye damsels.

Naivety?

I did not know what a biscuit booby was and despite searching the net and asking round was none the wiser on Saturday morning. I know there is a fly called a “Dog Biscuit”, which is a big ball of spun deer hair used to imitate dog mixers used for carp fly fishing. Could it be one of these with a set of booby eyes? The only reference on the net I found was to a fritz concoction in a caramel colour and it wasn’t a booby though it would be easy to modify. I liked the “idea” of a deer hair booby though, so made up a couple on some larger dry fly hooks, about size 10. I had a goodly selection of imitative and nymphy/buzzery type flies in competition standard gauges and tied a few mini cats and blobs ( another hate) to be on the safe side.

Ah, one of those!

When I arrived I met my team mates Willie and Michael. Michael fishes with the Scottish youths team and when I mentioned the biscuit booby to him he said it was just a fritz booby like a peach or tequila blob with booby eyes. There you go, I had a couple of these in my box.

With the draws made and rules read, I was partnered with a chap, Grant, from Twecher near Glasgow, he had the engine end which suited me and at 18:00 we motored off into the choppy lake. It was all a bit mad and “Wacky Races” as all the boats motored to the top end of the loch to Roman Bay and the Malling Shore where apparently the fish were showing.

Off to Malling Shore

My partner Grant was quick getting the boat on station and dropped his flies over the side and a fish made a go right away. A cast and one broke him off before he even reacted! Between this and the boat pivoting oddly and my cast of Mini cat on point with a black snatcher on top dropper and a Black flash back Diawl Bach on middle dropper not raising any interest we were not off to the best start. My partner whose company I have to say I enjoyed, had just done telling me how he was out as much for a nice evening’s fishing as anything, clearly was a lot more competitive than he was letting on, as the boat situation was upsetting him quite a bit ( it wasnt greatly bothering me ) as though we seemed to be drifting to the left a bit I could not see it making much difference if you cast out in front. Most other boats seemed to be generally heading the same direction anyway though we were maybe catching up on one. We decided to sort the boat out by turning it 180 degrees and re-setting the drogue which I think may have been tangled round the stern a bit. This helped right enough and eventually we settled down in the fleet.

Washing Line

I decided to change to a booby on point and more of a washing line set up , though kept a snatcher on top but a smaller Pearly variant. I decided to give my Dog Biscuit booby a swim. First cast out and a fish slammed the booby as soon as it moved!

I lifted and a fish ( not a huge one ) shot off first right then left, I felt well enough in and was bringing it in when it came off. My initial check of the fly seemed OK but later I was looking and the hook was slightly bent- not really badly but looks like this was the problem. I cast again and had a swirl at the snatcher, then a fish turned away on either DB or the booby- a flash of silver under the flies. I was doing something right! I think a few of the other boats seen this and moved in on our pitch so to speak. I think I only saw one fish caught though in the time up this end.

Escape the crowd

It was very pressured and we made the decision to leave the crowd and go seek some fish of our own. First we headed into Sandy Bay but though there were tons of bugs on the water, and the odd fish moving as we approached it was dead as a dead thing in dead land and but for one Perch taken on a black holo Cruncher nothing was doing .

We motored round the point to the Butts and had the area to ourselves. There were fish here right enough though fairly widely spread out. Grants second or third cast caught the attention of a fish and he was very quick to boat it. So  off to a start. I had already swapped to a pair of dries and was on a Ginger Hopper on top and a Yellow Owl Shuttlecock on point. Grants fish fell to an Olive Hopper. It wasn’t long before a fish moved in front of him again and he had number 2 this time on a Yellow Owl.

We drifted down to Tod Hole and I managed to rise a fish and I think I “pricked” it but it wasn’t on. I was getting frustrated as they weren’t rising on my end of the boat so I had little to target, it was very much blind casting. Grant by now had dropped a third. One fish rose at range and Grant covered it but it seemed disinterested. I fired out a decent cast right to the area and immediately had the fish! This one stayed on, and I soon boated a fairly neat Rainbow. So I wasn’t going to blank. Grant dropped at least another 2 they just were not for sticking, and I was changing flies like a mad thing as my CDC creations were getting waterlogged after a dozen or so casts and the odd bit interest. I managed a second on a hopper, by now I was onto a single fly cast on a tapered co poly leader to help my presentation. It had got quite calm now and the water had barely a ripple. There were fish here you just needed to cover them when they rose.  I managed to cast out with a small CDC emerger and just for an instant looked down at my finger or something that was bugging me and a fish rose to my fly- how do they know you are not looking? Missed!

2,2 and 2

In the end I landed two, missed two and lost two. Grant landed four and probably lost and missed as many. It got dark as we had a wee cast up around the Rednock shore and it was getting a bit silly to see what you were doing. I think I rose one fish here and Grant maybe missed one too before we called it a night for the 11 o’clock end of the competition.

My team mates Willie and Michael had 2 and 4 respectively, so 8 for the team. I think the lead teams were on about 16-20 so we I think were out the running. I really enjoyed the evening though. Thanks to Grant my boat partner, Willie and Michael my Team-mates, Lake of Menteith Fisheries, Angling Active the main sponsors, the Daily Record and The Famous Grouse , and finally to Murray at the club for inviting me onto the team for the evening. Well done too, to SANACC for a well run event. Much appreciated, hope I did not let anyone down.

The final result is here: http://www.sanacc.org.uk/2012_heats.html