Very trying! To save you dear reader from a fruitless read expecting jumping fish, huge runs exposing the linebacking on my reel time and again, and finally being carried forth at shoulder height by fellow anglers in adulation at my Piscean Powers. I will cut to the chase and let you know I fished for about 3 hours yesterday on a crisp sunny afternoon at Swanswater and never so much as had a pull or a nip, never mind an actual take.
Never near
A frustrating session it was. There were fish showing occasionally though I have to say rarely near me! I spoke to a couple of anglers just packing up as I arrived and one had blanked the other had three, on the tactic I was planning to employ myself, “wee black Dial Backs” just under the surface to a few feet down”.
The Diawl Bach is usually a good fly this time of year at Swanny’s along with wee black or bloodworm buzzers.
However I had a tapered leader and tippet for a single fly already on my line so rather than muck around I tied on a wee stalking bug and decided to have a wee lob in round the burn mouth and see if I could find anything that might be hiding. There weren’t a lot of anglers out, but the majority seemed to be on the island or near the dam wall. Other anglers reported much the same as the guys coming off, the fish were up in the water at times and taking wee black buzzers and DB’s. Though it was slow and tough going for most.
Cover it, catch it
I had nothing on the bugs, so presumed no fish were there and then 45 minutes of fruitless water thrashing with an assortment of small and larger DB’s buzzers and bloodworms seemed to be for nothing. Moving a couple of times made little difference though the odd fish showed now and again. I
It seemed if one showed here and you covered it, you caught it. Were it so easy where I was! I eventually decided to have a go at a peg I rarely fish, the one on the far side of the dam wall with the trees obstructing one side, and the outflow beside you. The wind was fairly conducive to fishing here and as long as you watched your back cast for loads of walkers passing by, you were OK. I even cast backwards to get at those harder to reach spots for a right hander like me.
Two out of three
Eventually, there were three of us left on the loch and at one point 2/3rds of the anglers were hooked into a fish, I will leave you to guess who the remaining third was. The angler opposite me on the island was clearly catching on a lure judging by the pulling going on and I reluctantly ( because I hate fishing lures) tried a few but with similar underwhelming levels of success.
With about 30 mins left I decided to retire to the wee ponds where a chap was slaying the trout using wee DB’s washing line style with a wee CDC dry on point. He missed a couple as I talked to him and said he had had 4 already. I swapped back to the same
