With the English late Summer Bank Holiday this past weekend, I had taken the Monday off too as all my work colleagues were off automatically. We have separate holiday arrangements being based in Scotland.
My plan was to go river fishing, so all my river gear was ready to go in the boot of the car and I had planned an early ( ish) start to make as much of a day of it as I could. The forecast looked fine and all that was left was to decide where to go.
I was thinking, back down the Clyde at Lamington again ( a bit of a drive), maybe the Earn ( though might be busy with Salmon anglers given recent high water), or an explore into areas I have less experience of, on the River Devon. On Sunday evening the decision was made. Carron Valley Reservoir!
John had won a days boat fishing on the big water, via a Facebook competition run by Jimmy Feeney the owner of the fishery and wanted to use it while the conditions were set fair.
This meant a complete turn round of my fishing gear. Out the car came my river rods and reels, river net, bugs and river flies, and waders, in went the boat box, cassette reels, waterproofs ( including old waders I use for boat fishing), boat seat and other bits and pieces for a day on the water.
All that was left in the morning was to make a packed lunch, and head off….. but there was the matter of a few flies. I had done OK with foam Deer Hair Daddies the last time I was out, though my tying of the pattern was, it would have to be said, not been the most robust. I needed to tie a few more, better-tied versions. So spent an hour before bed on Sunday tying a couple of fresh flies in Orange, then when I got up in the morning thinking I had enough time, a couple more in Green. I was a little later in leaving the house on Monday morning as a result but was down at CV pretty much on 9am as arranged… then disaster……
First screw up
Where are my rods? They weren’t in the car! In the swapping over on Sunday I seemed to have negated to put these crucial implements in the car boot. What a dunderheid!
John kindly loaned me his spare – a two-piece 10foot 7/8 weight monster of a thing. I thought almost right away it was going to be too heavy for me, but let’s see how I fared?
With our gear on the boat we motored up to Gull Island as we heard there were a few fish around there on the weekend. One rod had I think caught 60 fish! I had my own reel with the 7# Snowbee XS line on as I felt it might be needed with this heavy weapon of a rod.
It cast OK ( to me) but the weight was killing my fingers and my wrist. But with a two fly cast, the point fly being the Orange Foam Daddy and a Green Holo Diawl Bach on the dropper I was soon one fish up, then two, three then four. Two fish on each fly. I wasn’t bothering, I am not that competitive, but John was getting somewhat animated that it is always a competition with your boat partner. 🙂 There was little visibly moving around the island but the fish appeared to my flies without any real warning.
More Woes
We had drifted into one of the bays carried ahead of what it has to be said was a very variable wind all day, the direction was rather apt to change without warning. I think by this time John had suffered a rather bad tangle in his leader system and had to change it over. Then as we manoeuvred close into the edge of the bay he managed to run over his ( pretty new) midge tip line, getting it caught around the prop.
Having waders and welly’s on ( something I did get right when I saw how grim the conditions looked early on) I had to climb off the boat and drag it right into the shallows where I could untangle the line from the prop.
It had burned the coating on John’s line but we were otherwise, good to go again, but not before we then drifted over my leader which then got snagged under the boat too. I eventually got this clear.
I was struggling a bit with the heavy rod though clearly, it wasn’t stopping me catching, and I said to John, as we had drifted down towards the main dam wall, how about dropping me off at the jetty, and I would nip home and get my own rod, as I felt I would need to pack in sooner rather than later if I carried on with this thing, it was just too heavy for me on my skinny wrists and arthritic fingers. Call it a handicap….give John a chance to try to get even while I was away. I even said he could borrow my flies! He had earlier refused the offer of one of my spares.
So off home I went, leaving John to pull two fish out near the dam end (alledgedly- no witnesses) 🙂 , one Rainbow and one Brownie, on my flies by the way…..I think he might have tried my (his spare) rod and he admitted himself it was a bit of a heavy tool and hard on the wrists. But clearly with the right set up (mine) no less effective!
Odd Going’s on
What was odd though was, when I got back to the pier with my own rods, was how John seemed to be tied up, changing his gear from one boat to another. In my absence, he had had another mishap and managed to bump the prop off the bottom, and broke the shear pin.
We got swapped over and fortunately, I also brought with me a spare net. In the previous boat it was a bit of a stretch to reach and get the net from John’s end so I decided to bring my own one along…… just as well as in the haste to get out again, we never checked if this boat had a net, it didn’t so that would have been another issue!
We went further up the reservoir and the plan was to fish some of the well known big bays on the southern shore. By now it had brightened up and was getting warm. There was still a good wave but we saw nothing move. I cast out my first cast with my own rod…. ahh….. that’s better, and immediately was taken by Brown Trout number 5, once again on the Orange foam bodied Daddy.
We fished on but other than the odd swirl never really encountered any more fish. John took the decision to fish a bit deeper as it was so bright and dropped onto the Di3.
I pondered doing the same but decided to put a beaded fly on point instead, for a while. We did I think if I recall correctly both get a few pulls in some of the bays and I think John got one Brown, before I hooked another that came off while I was trying to get John to pass me the net up the even longer boat we were now in!
As we motored up the final leg to 30 minute Bay the skies clouded over and the wind got up again, blowing Johns hat off his head into the water. Fortunately, we were quick enough to be able to return and scoop it out before it was lost!
On the road shore, we drifted down fishing the small bays that were a little shallow at times. Both of us had the odd pull, I think I personally was getting more on the floating line than John was on the Di3 but then again John wasn’t fishing “that deep” as he was keeping the line short and retrieving fairly quickly after it all landed. John though did hook another fish, a really bonnie Wild Brownie, maybe a pound and a quarter to a half or so but with iridescent red spots. For my money the fish of the day. I too got one more on the Daddy fished dry, redressing the fly was definitely a key tip of the day and did seem to result in more interest.
With about 30 minutes of our day left, I was starting to tire a bit it has to be said, the earlier fishing with the heavier rod had taken its toll on my hands and shoulders, we headed back nearer the dam end to see if we could locate any more Rainbows.
Bigger catches
John on the Di3 hooked one almost right away on a small black booby on a dropper and it put a big bend in the rod as he wrestled it to the boat. As he sorted out his line I took it upon myself to cast over to the shore side which was closer to Johns side of the boat.
As he started to cast again he tried to fire a cast inside of my line, which resulted in him whipping the line by me and you can guess what happened next? The biggest catch of the day, I was hooked in the side of the head between the leg of my sunglasses and my hat!
All I could feel ( apart from a bit of a sting) was a clump of nylon and hook embedded in my temple under my hair! John took a look and without warning me, probably a good thing pulled the offending chunk of metal out my skin. I think it was barbless so it only stung a bit!
Go Deeper
Back fishing John got a second, bigger Rainbow that was probably the biggest fish of the day but still not as pretty as that Brown. There are I think a few Rainbows about but if you want to reach them you need to fish deeper- John’s Di3 was meeting that requirement, more than my weighted point fly.
By now it was “end of shift” and we motored back the short few yeards to the Jetty. I think the score ( not that I am in any way competitive when it comes to fishing- John is the bean counter!) was technically 6 apiece but as he used my flies, and one Brownie was foul hooked I think I had the moral win! But a good laugh and hopefully no more mishaps for a while! Sorry to Jimmy Feeney for banging your outboard about! I blame the captain of the ship personally. They trust him with 40 ton articulated lorries you know! 🙂
You get these things happen now and then, especially tangles- and we had a ton of those over the day, but rarely does it all come together in one outing.
So John…about that three in a boat proposal…… emmmmm, nope!
