A “Fathers Day fishing Trip” has been a long time coming with the pandemic, but my son sent me a Fathers Day card and told me he owed me two outings. I was watching the forecast all week as we arranged we would get out Friday, we both had a day off and he was coming back home as he had a friends wedding to attend at the weekend.
It looked like it might be a pretty wet back end to the week but as Friday approached it appeared that it was actually likely to be dry after a very wet Thursday evening, though the wind might be fresher than of late. If there is a bit of a breeze you can do worse than head out in a boat, as generally speaking, you can get the wind behind you somewhere. I toyed with maybe heading to the Black Loch ( a place I have yet to visit) or maybe even Coulter ( it had the attraction of costing me nothing) but both are places that are somewhat exposed should it be windy. So in the end I played it safe and opted for Lake of Menteith. My son and I used to fish it occasionally when I used to get the loan of one of the private boats on the Lake so he kinds of knows the place. Maybe not the easiest of venues but I was hopeful that I have enough time under my belt up there that I should be able to find somewhere he would be able to fish and that we may get a fish or two.
He isn’t much of an angler (though he can cast OK when he puts his mind to it) and has even less experience in fishing from a boat, so I knew I was probably taking on a bit of a task if conditions required a lot of boatmanship.
What I never really took into account, it quite caught me out was the wind variability. Yes, it was a wee bit strong at times but nothing scary, but do you think you could work out which direction it was blowing?
The short answer is no.
I had a tip-off the places to fish were near the Burn in Gateside Bay and the Mallin Shore. SO we headed up to Gateside first, it was a wee bit bumpy as we motored up but as I say nothing terribly bad though the water was pretty coloured up. And while it wasn’t warm exactly it wasn’t uncomfortably cold. There were two boats near the burn, in Gateside. One beyond it appeared to be fishing East to West. The other nearest us was fishing towards us ( basically North to South). I stopped the boat on the corner and the waves were pushing the boat into the bay, but the wind felt like it was coming into our faces. I chucked the drogue out and it did precisely nothing and in fact, we then started drifting backwards over it again.
OK, so I will motor in cautiously between the two boats to the mouth of the burn and fish out behind the one currently facing me ( it was a good 30-40 metres away and there was maybe the same distance between the two boats in there.
I gingerly moved in, by which time the boat that was drifting East to West now appeared to be turned North to South. ANd the boat that was drifting North to South was now turned South to North! I turned the boat the way it felt it was going to drift, and immediately we were going West, then turned South, again the Drogue wasn’t slowing us and fishing was a bit of a ‘mare, as the wind was all over the place. It was evident after a few minutes that somehow we appeared to be getting closer to both boats which were fishing in entirely different directions….. how could that even be? And not a fish had we seen though the water in here seemed relatively calm.
It was difficult, so I decided to pull in the drogue and head to the Mallin Shore, where I could see the majority of boats appeared to be. It was also looking a wee bit more blowy there but that didn’t bother me if it meant we had a steady drift, we could just tuck in the back and drift along with the other boats that appeared to be heading East to West.
I motored to just beyond the buoys for the submerged Crannog if you know where that is and turned us across the wind and deployed the drogue, the nearest boat was a good 30 metres ahead and we were not directly behind. By the time I had my rod and line ready and we were starting to fish, it was apparent that the drogue simply wasn’t holding us. I couldn’t understand why but pulled it in to check if it was twisted or something. It was worse than that, it only had three lines attached so basically, it was collapsing. One of the braided nylon straps was broken. This was no good, we would need to return to the boathouse. I managed to get us out from the rear of the pack, which we were soon going to be overtaking, and was going to head back, but then headed to the islands thinking I might be able to find some calmer water. And indeed we did, but the wind here was just twisting and turning relentlessly, you were spinning like a topmost of the time. It was like being in a washing machine. I did manage to make a repair to the drogue though, it was now working better.
We fished out here for about an hour but not a fish did we see. By lunchtime, there were lots of flies coming off, chiefly some big mayflies as well as loads of Damsels.
I gave my son an intermediate line to try and swapped my floater to a sink tip myself but by the time we had stopped for a bite to eat then fished for a wee while more it was evident the “fleet” had broken up and boats were now all over the place, all drifting entirely different directions. I got the impression many were simply looking for somewhere out the wind. As I say it wasn’t unfishably strong, it was just very very variable in direction, you could have two boats within 15 metres of each other going entirely different directions which doesn’t make for relaxed fishing.
We managed a drift from the islands over to the Heronry and this went reasonably well until we got into the shallower water when I started to get prepared to turn the boat away from the bank and head towards deeper water. James was a bit slow in getting his line out of the water, while I pulled in the drogue, tidied away my own line and then started the motor….. his line went under the boat and you can guess what happened next, line wrapped around the prop. ALL STOP!
Luckily ( I suppose) the line snapped, and the prop seemed to still be driving the boat, as I was struggling to get the planing foot to lift to take a look, the wee lever thing seemed to be jammed somehow. Once I got into deeper water, I was able to get things sorted out again and changed my lads line and get back into some sort of reasonable shape.
I then set off to drift near Dog Isle, which seemed quieter now and with a working drogue, hopefully, easier to fish. The boat was still drifting somewhat erratically and at times we were getting a bit closer than I would have liked to one other boat out here, but there wasn’t much I could do about it, they were drifting South-westerly whereas my boat wanted to go west! Nonetheless, we did manage to fish reasonably well for a while here and finally, though we had yet to see a fish, I managed somehow to hook a fish. It wasn’t huge, a Rainbow Trout of maybe 2lb and it was leaping all over the place. The take was so gentle initially I thought it may be a small Wild Brown Trout or even a Roach. But it put up a bit of a fight and was darting all over the place. This became a problem as my lad, instead of pulling in his line, grabbed for the net instead which wasn’t really necessary. The fish headed to his end of the boat and yes you have guessed it, swam my line right through my sons dangling cast of flies. The fish was now attached to two rods! There was a real possibility if I didn’t put some fairly firm pressure on it that it would snap one or both rods! I had a fairly beefy leader on ( I tend to fish a little heavier than usual at the Lake) and was taking no prisoners bullying the fish to the net. It was about to flip over the lip of the net when the hook pulled out. Probably my excessive pressure, but I had to get it in or face the consequences. It did me a favour really as it made getting the ensuing tangle out easier. I am counting it as ordinarily I would have netted it!
After another strange swirling drift in near the shore we decided for the rest of the afternoon to share a rod and go over to Sandy bay and see if there were more Mayflies around. Indeed there were…hundreds of them but probably a sign that there were really no fish about, that nothing really seemed to be coming up for them. The water was fairly calm so for once you could get a decent view of what was happening. We did spot one fish rise several times near a overhanging branch. I tied on a Double Decker and managed to raise the fish once but it never took. My son managed to raise a fish as well, though again it never took. It was a relief to be out that wind though it has to be said.
By three o’clock I had to be heading in as he had a rehearsal for the wedding to head to , and to be honest I was kind of relieved to get back on shore as it had been a bit of a nightmare session. Hopefully the next time we are out together its a bit more fun.
