I had a couple of hours to get out and make hay so to speak on Saturday and Sunday. Friday as I reported earlier wasn’t the nicest day but between the squally showers in the dank greyness of the afternoon, there were batches of flies coming off the water and the Trout were chasing them up, so you stood a chance subsurface and even on the top.
Saturday was altogether different. I was up early to let the dog out and there was not a cloud in the sky at the back of seven in the morning. It looked gorgeous until I realised why the dog was behaving so oddly. He was seeing his own breath in the cold air and he was clearly confused where the smoke was coming from. Its been a mild winter on the whole so I guess he has forgotten what real cold is like the previous two winters! I sensed it could be a difficult day for fishing. As the day wore on the gentle but cold breeze stiffened to a steady blow but the sun stayed out.
Casting from the boat under a cold Spring sky
I popped up to the loch mid-afternoon for a couple of hours, and there was surprisingly only one other angler out. He had not seen or touched a fish all day. I took the boat out and have to say trying much the same tactics as yesterday plus a few changes of patterns, from nymphs through trad wets and spiders I never got a sniff. I saw two fish move the whole time I was there but there was precious little in the way of insect life coming off. I think the cold wind and bright sun were conspiring to keep the fish down and lethargic.
Sunday seemed a bit milder at ground level but under much the same time constraints and an ever-optimistic approach that I will somehow pull something from nothing I went up again for a few more hours. There were a few more anglers about, but the conditions were similar, a cold wind and few fish moving. However, I did manage a single fish of about a pound on the same PTN as Friday- I will call it the “unfamous PTN” just because I don’t know if there is an existing variety the same: I am sure there will be but I have to call it something!
I moved the boat to opposite the island and on my first cast had one very hard knock that caught me unawares, you can never guess a fish size by a knock really but it really pulled back, but wasn’t hooked which was a pity.
Another guy I was talking to , he was tackling up at the same time as me, was having a little more success from the bank than I was in the boat, he had three fish while I was there, two at once on one occasion. I think he is a fairly well-known angler and fly tier, called Barry Duffy, and he was showing me his box of Snatchers ( that sounds improper). He was telling me that this was all he fishes, I guess that makes fly selection a doddle then! I think he had every size and colour and it was a very impressive collection. So I might have to give tying the Snatcher a go. I have tied a few before but I don’t feel I have suitable cock feathers for this; he was telling me Metz #3 were the ones to use, so I will keep an eye out for some of these. But we had an interesting blether about Grayling and Rivers and lochs and put the world to rights about angling generally so it was all good stuff.
I left though fairly satisfied that I had managed to leave without a blank to add to yesterdays first.
Roll on summer.
