I hope you are having a Merry Christmas time and are looking forward to a good ( and most of all, safe) Hogmanay. It was a fairly quiet event round my place that my work did it’s best to spoil with several issues arising through the day that put a bit of a dampener on proceedings…and I wasn’t even on call! Were it that was the truth, in this job these days, basically you are on call 24/7/365. I ended up working through until about 2am on Boxing Day which was a joy. As I write this I actually am on call now for another 48 hours, so hopefully I can fully chill, come Friday and the lead in to the non event that is ( for me anyway) Hogmanay.
Monday was the traditional Day After Boxing Day Charity fishing competition at Swanswater. Normally I attend this, but the COVID situation being what it is, I wasn’t eager to spend time in close proximity to around 30 others, all of whom had most likely been in close proximity to 3 or 4 others each over the preceding days. Given that the current infection rate is running at something like 1 in 60 people, there is a high probability that at least one or two of those attending has the virus. Inside or outside, that’s not something I want to be worrying about for the sake of a spot of fishing so I held off to go when it was a bit quieter.
The event though I understand was very well attended, full, I believe and 119 fish were caught, so that’s a rod average of something close to four fish per angler and most important of all £600 was raised for Strathcarron Hospice. So well done to all involved both anglers and fishery. Alastair was telling me that fish were caught off pretty well every peg which is great for a competition, as ‘its not unknown for there to be a couple of hotspots that decide the event some years.
Also, I don’t know about you but this grim grey dank weather, that isn’t in itself that unusual at this time of year, though perhaps it’s a little milder than normal, isn’t conducive to getting me out of bed in the morning.
The Darkness
I did though manage to extract myself from my warm bed yesterday (Tuesday) with still about an hour and a half to go before the sun would be at its daily zenith and decided an afternoon of fishing was in order. I couldn’t be bothered going far, I do want to hit a river for the Grayling sometime before I return to work proper, but will need to be up and ready a lot earlier than 10:30 I reckon!
I took a run around to Swanswater expecting it to be pretty busy and at first view I thought it was, the car park being fairly well occupied, but in actuality there were not a lot of anglers about. I doubt there were more than 8 on the main lochan. As the day before’s competition is a Catch and Release only event, I did reckon it might be a bit of a job getting fish to take, there were undoubtedly be a few sporting a few bad memories of the day before, so they might be reluctant to take so eagerly. This proved to be the case I think. It was indeed a bit slow going. Fish were being caught but as far as I could tell not in great numbers.
Those Bungs- time for a moan.
Every angler I could see appeared to be fishing under a bung. While I fully accept and acknowledge that it is considered a valid and “legal” method I do despair a little that its so eagerly utilised by so many right from the off, OK for all I know some of those using it might have been there a while and had resorted to it as a “when all else fails approach”, like I would myself if necessary but I know that isn’t true for all. For me, yes I will use it but I need to be getting desperate or seeing that its the only way that’s going to work, basically where vertical and static is the only way fish will take. And I don’t see how you can tell that just turning up and starting to fish.
Yes I have heard the argument that it’s no different to fishing under a dry fly which is a method I do try fairly often when appropriate, but then I never see anyone doing that ( apart from me!). Am I a fly fishing purist or a snob? I don’t think so I just feel a bung is a bit of a “crutch” and many seem to come to the sport and don’t actually know any other way of “fly fishing”. It also puts an immediate barrier to success in the way of the aspiring fly fisherman. If you can’t cast well, tying a 15mm plastic float, or a polystyrene bead to your leader really is not going to help matters. I see guys tie on an Airloc or FishPimp then struggle to get their line out more than 20 feet from the bank. If you are “lucky” and fish are cruising near to the bank ( maybe in the morning before fishing pressure has had time to build) you might have some joy, but I see a LOT of fishless anglers thrash the same spot for hours with no reward all because all they have in their armoury is fishing under the bung.
That’s not to say that it may indeed be the only effective method, especially when fishing is slow, but at least give other methods a go first unless your primary goal is to feed your family from your catch!
In the end it is a legitimate method so I guess it’s up to the angler how they get their fun, but we can all have an opinion.
Moan Over
As I arrived on the water I had pretty much the choice of anywhere to go and the sun made a very rare appearance and I could not resist going and fishing in the sunlight which was pleasantly warming, on the concrete plinth at the side of the sluice on the dam wall. It’s a difficult spot to fish with a fly’s graveyard of a tree right to your right hand side. Left handed anglers are fine here but the wind can play a part in determining whether its fishable for the “righty” like me. I just cast backwards where I find the tree is causing me an issue. It gets me funny looks at times ( backwards casting is a technique often reserved for fishing into a head on wind I suppose), but I find it works where casting room is restricted. Your forward cast can be made accurately into the space “behind” you that is safe and your delivery is made backwards. I don’t get optimal range and it can slap the water a bit at times but it works for reaching otherwise unreachable water and not losing loads of flies or “pulling” your cast as you are concerned about the back cast hooking a bush or tree. I started with a Intermediate line and a small lure and two smaller flies on droppers but caught nothing but weeds from the bottom. Amazingly for the time of year there were a lot of fish showing on top though all day I don’t think I saw a single fish cruising by anywhere. After a while with a few patterns and retrieves I decided to try a floating line with a small dry on the point and some very small buzzers on the droppers, washing line style to see if I could tempt one of these rising fish. They were definitely taking something though it wasn’t evident exactly what. I did see the odd very small midge on the water in the corner of the dam wall in the sunlight but to match them would have been a size 22 at best and with suitable tippet to fish that, I doubt I would have been able to land a strong Rainbow Trout on a 6 weight rod.
First move
After about an hour, fishless, I decided to move around to the newly renovated platform just before the bridge to the island. Its shallower here so you are better staying on a floating line here and tying on a heavier fly to get some depth. I was varying between lures, some wets and buzzers, but did once again try a dry when a fish rose about three times on the same spot to my left. This did manage to illicit some attention, just the once, but a fish rose to my fly but just failed to take it….I suspect it was a tad too big even though it was only a size 16 black shuttlecock.
Off to the Island
After about another hour I went out onto the island. The surface activity definitely tailed off and so I reverted to the Intermediate line once more and was trying different colours of small lure. I moved onto white, and tied on a Fireman lure, the lure my friend Radek showed me. I wouldn’t claim my tying of this fly is exactly to the specification but it is good enough and does get the odd fish for me now and again. Also my one is unweighted so was a good choice with the intermediate line, to keep me reasonably well out of the weeds when retrieving. A few fish rose quite a distance out and some decent long casts finally paid off when first a fish clearly followed me in and then eventually one took, putting up a strong fight, a brightly coloured Rainbow of about Two to two and a half pounds.
I had a couple more knocks and pulls here in this period and there was definitely a bit of a mad half hour when there were suddenly fish being caught right around the loch but then as the sun stooped below the horizon at about 3pm, the temperature noticeably dropped and activity again slowed.
Finish up at the Ponds
For my last half hour I took a wander down to the wee ponds and had a cast at the pond nearest the house. I had it to myself. It was interesting, that unlike “up top” it was less cold down here, and you could see a few Golden Trout moving around sub surface. As I said earlier, I had not seen a fish visibly all day up top other than fish rising. I was still on an Intermediate line and it isn’t ideal down here where it can be a bit shallower, but seeing the Golden Trout I tied on my wee golden Damsel sparkly thing. First cast, the fish went into a frenzy and I was sure I was going to get a take but it didn’t happen. Second cast- indifference….. something was wrong. I lifted the fly out and it was smeared in slimy weed. With that cleaned off I cast again, and almost immediately I was into a fish. The Golden Trout put up a strong fight relative to its size but I basically bullied it to the net as I was confident it wouldn’t break me off. What was funny was the Golds then utterly vanished….I never saw one after this point! I imagine they became spooked by the hooking of their chum. With about 10 minutes until closing time at 4pm I tied the Fireman back on, hopefully it would snag less on the bottom and after a couple of more long casts right across the pond, I was into a second fish here, this time a Rainbow Trout of about 2pounds. It was interesting how much more active the fish were here compared to the top lochan where they had been heavily pursued the day before.
Anyway I was happy with my lot, all the fish were returned unharmed and it was time to head home once again in the early evening darkness and gloom, and no bungs.
