Wednesday- Easterly and fishless
A bit late on commenting ( though if you follow comments on the fB page you will know anyway) but was up at Cocksburn ( Pendreich ) for a couple of windswept hours on Wednesday evening. I was keen to get out though even at home in the front garden I had a feeling it was going to be blowy. The east wind that has been here for a while now was sweeping down the loch and is never conducive to decent fishing. I tried to hack it out for 30 minutes or so on the North bank with the wind coming across me left to right but there was precious little moving and but for one half-hearted pull nothing was letting on it was interested. There was another angler there fishing in waders off a prominent point on the south bank and in the shelter from the wind. Everytime I looked up he seemed to be drying his net so clearly had found some fish. I wasn’t wading myself but admitted defeat in the wind where I was and made for the south bank. It was a lot calmer here and as the evening wore on a few fish started showing. I was fishing a tiny black spider and a nymph. I managed one stiff pull that failed to fully connect and then later I opted to try a very speculative dry fly, and rose a couple but again no connection was made. The other angler made his way down to me. I don’t know how long he had fished for, certainly he was there before me, and was saying he had got eight at his spot. Lucky sod! I left with a blank!
Despite the cold wind, it turne dinto a bit of a stunning evening as the sun set
Hot Sunday
Sunday was a very warm sunny day and though I was champing at the bit to get out I decided to hold back until evening. I was in three minds where to go, back up the Pendreich, Loch Coulter, or Swanswater. In the end the weather made my mind up as by the time I left the house around six-thirty, there was a fair breeze. That cold Easterly yet again. On the way to Swanswater the flags at Bannockburn and Chartershall were fully extended flying in the wind.
As I tackled up at Swanswater Alastair came across for a chat and I could tell from his face and comments it wasn’t fishing especially well. You have to try though.
Despite the wind the main loch was mirror flat and there was tons of insect life about, but precious few of the bigger fish moving. Lots of small wild Brownies though. I often find up there when it’s like this that the upper layer of small fish seems to inhibit the Rainbows, Tigers and others from showing up top and it can get rather desperate. I tried a lot of patterns from dries, to buzzers and even a couple of small but fairly heavy lures. Not a touch did I get. After a couple of hours I was set on moving to the wee ponds down by the house. Even as I was giving it my last go, Alastair and his wife Morna came round walking the dogs and they said, I think your going to struggle to catch here tonight. The fish ARE there, but they really weren’t interested and seemed spooky. On three occasions I cast out, clearly near something and they bolted from their position creating big bow waves on the surface as they moved.
Down at the pond the odd fish was showing. Whats funny with fishing is ont he big pond you see lots of small swirls and often assess that it was one of the small wild fish. Here on the ponds you rarely get the wee wildies and yet the same tiny swirls happen but its the bigger Rainbows and blues making the disturbance. You really can’t tell the size of a fish by the rise alone. ( unless you see the fish of course!). I had tied on a small black parachute dry and tried a few speculative casts. I had noticed a bit of a scum on the water surface and this was proving to be a bit of an impediment to good presentation as when you recovered the fly and line it had this stuff on it. The stuff seemed to be the seeds off dandelion heads and as there was so little water movement in the conditions it was forming a bit of a slick. it also meant you needed to clean fly and line a lot. I decided to try just target a rising fish and one obligingly rose about two rod lengths ahead of me so I landed the fly perfectly on the spot ( for once) and it had the fly in its mouth almost as soon as it landed. Finally a fish! And a decent fish to, a rainbow of close to three pounds I would estimate that seemed to find more energy as the fight went on.
Netted Blue Trout rested then returned
Once returned I persevered a bit with the dry but the constant cleaning was a bit of a chore. The angler next to me had caught one at the same time I did and had since had a few knocks and misses. He was fishing an olive daddy type pattern but letting it sink and retrieving it sub surface at a fair rate. I decided to swap myself to an olive cruncher and just retrieve sub surface thus limiting the mess made by the seed heads. This worked and I hooked number two, a nice wee standard 2lb blue. By then it was near enough time to call it a night but at least I had got a decent bend in the rod.
