I managed a couple of 4 hour sessions on some local rainbow trout fisheries this week. I wasn’t desperate to go but as my likely opportunities to fish might be limited as this winter wears on I thought I should not look a gift horse in the mouth, and get out. A lot of what fishing is about for me, is just getting out doors and just now this sort of time is at a premium.
We had two days of heavy rain after my outing on the Clyde and I knew this would mean the water would be very coloured up and brown but I still headed along to my local fishery, Swanswater, on Thursday afternoon. It was very calm and few fish showed in the time I was there. The water was like cold Mulligatawny soup though it started to clear a little towards 18:00.
I must have tried everything, small and large lures on an intermediate line and a floater, dry flies, wets and nymphs, even buzzers late on. The intermediate was seeing me get snagged up on the by now, decaying weed on the bottom, a bit too much so I got a bit fed up with this at times, as I was constantly needing to remove the slimy debris from the flies. I never had a touch all afternoon unfortunately. One chap I spoke to had caught one nice Blue on a wet Mayfly pattern of all things, and I seen one other fish caught near the dam wall and that pretty much summed it up. Apparently a few fish had been taken on a hopper early on in the day but though I seen a few fish rise near the roadside gate beyond the island, my best efforts with various dry flies never got a show of interest. I left empty handed.
On Saturday afternoon it was a fairly pleasant and I decided to have a visit out to Harviestoun again, having fished it once in early season. Its been getting good reports from other anglers in my club and certainly the fighting prowess of the fish there was something I could not doubt from my last visit, where I had some pretty good sport with some savage takes to dry flies.
It wasn’t too busy when I arrived and while I don’t know for a fact I detected that a few guys had not touched a fish all day though fish, I could see were showing. The owner of the fishery was telling me to fish down the deeper east end, though I intended to have a go all the way round. The east end has tricky casting due to a high embankment. I seen a few fish move almost directly opposite the fishery office so decided to start there, recalling how it was not a bad spot the last time I visited.
While lure pulling was being touted as the most successful method, I put a small cats whiskers on point an Unfamous Pheasant tail nymph, on middle dropper and a Diawl Bach on top. I cast fairly short and into the margins as the fish I seen were close in. The flies had barely touched the water and to be honest I had not even started to fish them as I was still spooling off line from my reel when I noticed the line moving away and lifted into an absolute beauty of a Rainbow trout, which weighed in at 3lbs when I eventually netted it. It had a big full tail and was wonderfully coloured- almost like a brown trout from above. It had taken the PTN fairly solidly and was not coming off easily.
Full finned, beautifully coloured 3lb trout from Harviestoun
Despite the odd fish rising nearby I never had another touch here and moved down the south bank heading in the anti clockwise direction. An awful lot of the fish rising were very close in and this got my curiosity. It wasn’t until I was about halfway down the south bank that I seen a clump of weed that I noticed lots of small fish fry under the canopy of waterborne greenery. Could it be the small fry the trout were taking. It was hard to say. I went to a wet daddy long legs and initially this got me a few follows and tugs but nothing solid. The owner came round to see how I was faring and as I moved pegs he told me there was a remnant of an old willow tree still submerged to my left. I cast all the way round and only when I got to my 10 o’clock position did I get a tug and a fish took. I started to apply tension and it tugged back with some hard head shakes very like a grayling!. However the line then went very tight, I could still feel the fish shake but the line wasn’t giving at all. it did not feel that big at first , and I realised it must have tangled me in the willow stump. Eventually I had to tug hard and my leader snapped, losing me the fly and the fish.
A not insignificant mouthful for a hungry trout, but an effective variant.
I moved right down to the east end and tried a few goes at covering some nearby fish to no effect. I fished for a wee while getting caught in the high embankment a few times. The fry then came to my attention again as there was a huge patch of weeds to my left and the tell-tale “sprinkling” effect of the fry darting for cover under the water could be seen- were fish hitting the fry?
Only one way to find out, I tied on a floating fry pattern with a holographic green cruncher. My second cast I twitched the floating fry and there was a splash as a fish rose right out the water and took what I thought was the fry pattern. It certainly rose from below the fry but in fact took the cruncher probably thinking it to be pin fry. It was quite spectacular, but I wasn’t bothered, it was a fish, a nice 2lb full tailed blue.
By now time was knocking on, I could have fished another 30-40 minutes but in truth my hands and hip were starting to hurt a bit so decided to call it a day, but it was most enjoyable to be out in the pleasant late autumn sunshine.
