Out of the main Brown Trout season I usually pop along to my “local”, Swanswater, if I need a quick Piscatorial fix. However, if you are a regular reader, which of course you will be, 😉 you will know that my Swanswater outings usually end in humiliation, for me rather than the fish. I think I have blanked there 4-5 times this year, since the late Spring . That’s close to a 100% failure rate. I had a couple of fish two visits ago, one of which was my biggest for the year, and on a dry fly but that’s about it.
I find (for me anyway) that it seems to fish better in the Winter.
Anyways went up there today, buttocks firmly clenched in anticipation of another “nils points” (say in French accent) and the omens were not good. Alastair said it had been a bit slow, and that the fish that had been caught were up against the top end of the main loch as opposed to the main deep area towards the dam or the channel. This is an area that in my experience rarely fishes well, I have never really seen a fish caught there. It was fairly busy there so I decided to start at a favourite spot at the back of the Island- “Nan’s spot”. I started on a couple of small lures, a small Black Humungous type pattern, and a white Bunny Leach but wasn’t touched, and was picking up a lot of weed on the Intermediate line. After 20 minutes of this, I swapped the point to a Red Holo Cormorant with a Green-backed Spider on top dropper. The second cast I had a knock but further casts failed to elicit a response. There were a few fish moving though I suspected many were small wild fish, and a lot of insects coming off so I swapped to a floater with a small black Klink and a Sedge, later replaced by a Daddy Longlegs but this got nothing either. A bigger fish was rising over by the roadside so I headed over there in time for it stopping (as usual). A couple of other anglers I spoke to in the passing had been at the loch all day so far (it was now about 13:00 ) and not touched a thing.
I put on a Bibio Hopper and immediately had a rise and a take, but unfortunately, welcome as it was, it was a small wild fish. If I had caught it in a river I would have been quite chuffed but it was not what I was after. I moved a number of times and swapped tactics again through dries to lures (again) then onto Buzzers and still had nothing. I know a couple of anglers had done OK but in the time I was there never saw a fish caught. I was by now fishing the top end (where another angler had been blanking just before me). Was fishing a couple of epoxy Buzzers under a dry fly but it wasn’t working and the dry kept sinking (no it wasn’t a take) so after three top fly changes I put a third Buzzer on and used one of those stick on Indicators. Not really my style but it was the only method that was fishing the flies nice and vertical. I adjusted my leader to try to stop snagging the bottom but was starting to lose faith. I decided on a last few casts, the light was starting to go by now and I was going to move to the wee ponds. Second last cast, nothing. Last cast, slow retrieve……….. thump. Not a hard take but clearly there was a fish on and then all at once a huge head appeared out the water- and it was seriously pissed off!
This was a big fish- I estimated 6lbs, and looked like a Golden Trout. I decided to merely keep it tight and not play it too hard, only applying pressure if it headed to the margins to keep me free from snagging in the rushes. This seemed to be a good policy and a good 10-minute tussle later it came to the net. I went to lift it and couldn’t! It had fallen to a sort of coppery olive epoxy buzzer with a fluo green head. I admit I never tied this as I “won” it in the Lets Tackle Cancer charity auction recently, so not sure how the effect was achieved.
It was a big deep fish and heavier than I reckoned, my wee pocket scale had it just under 8lb but Alastair’s official scales said 8lb 4oz my personal biggest fish to date as well as biggest Golden Trout- don’t get a lot of them.
Big Golden Trout
The light was getting bad now so I went and fished the ponds for a while and had a second fish to the wee magic buzzer, and had a lot of knocks and tugs but never fully connected again. So two fish for the day, unfortunately (for me) there have been a lot of BIG fish caught recently so this one won’t be a contender for the Troutmasters this year I don’t think but still very satisfying…. and not humiliating at all.
Well done Sir!
Thanks Allan!