Wasn’t there a song called, or with the line “when two become one”. If fished the heats of the Scottish Clubs last night and for me, three became two.
Teams
I was drawn with an angler from the Strathy club which is down Ayrshire way. His name was Kenny, so I wasn’t going to have any trouble on that front.
Kenny is (it appears) a full on competitive angler. The way he spoke, he only fishes competitively.
Nothing like me then.
Before heading off I met up with team mates for the evening, Gavin Adams and Paul Boyle. One of Gavs friends was out during the day and had over 20 fish on dries up the top end around Mallin Shore. From other reports we gathered top from Sandy Bay to Mallin had a lot of fish.
They’re off
The usual Le Man’s type start was the usual mad dash to the fishing areas but by the time we reached the top end the boats seemed very spread out. Before the start the wind had got up and there was a pretty “healthy” wave on the water. Not ideal dry fly conditions. My starting rig was a midge tip, skinny cormorant, olive cruncher and a black cat booby on point.
Stripping the slack
I don’t think we tucked the boat in to the shore tight enough and the drift didn’t seem to keep us in the zone for long even with a drogue out. I never saw a fish on that first sweep. We tucked in tighter for the second and almost first cast I had the oddest take. Instead of everything going tight I spotted a fish kind of porpoising along the top towards me. Not once did I feel it but I realised it had to be on.
It took me a ton of stripping but I did eventually get in contact with it nearly by the boat. It just kept coming at me. Luckily I had a good hook set with a Barbed hook. It had taken a black cormorant but was only about a pound and a half or so.
Under the rules your first two fish were to be taken and weighed, the rest catch and released and counted as 2lb each. So you want your biggest fish early on.
I had a few follows on the booby but nothing more and my boat partner lost a fish by the net.
It was going so well
Fish were rising near the bank and with less wind, I decided to swap to the full floater and a single dry fly. A fish rose well out in front of me, I cast out covering it almost perfectly and it came up sweet as a nut and took the fly.
I got the better fish in fairly easily, bigger than the last and netted. I left the hook on and with it still in the net on my boat seat tray in front of me I went to chap the fish. If you follow me you will know I don’t kill fish generally. But rules is rules.
I got hold of the fish cleared the net to get a decent shot at the fishes head, hit it once and it jumped out the net right back into the water! I grabbed the line to try get hold of it again but it flicked its head and the line snapped. Noooooo!
If I had been on catch and release at this stage it would have counted as it was netted.
After this I couldn’t get a fish to look at a dry. There were loads of fish rising though they always seemed to be somewhere other than in front of me. My boat partner lost another but did eventually get one to the net.
Glassy calm
By now he was fishing some sort of hopper.
There were midges, a few sedges about and some big Mayflies but though I tried a variety of patterns including emergers it was hard to fathom what they wanted.
My partners hopper picked up the odd fish though they appeared to come entirely at random.
After hanging round this shoreline until about 9pm we moved into the space between the islands.
There were fish moving here but it was glassy flat calm and the water had a scum of what I think were small blossoms off the trees. They weren’t causing issues with the flies but they would I feel make picking a fish off the top very difficult.
Purple patch
My boat partner had a purple patch where he cast about 5 times and netted three fish, though did end up in a bit of a mess with fish taking dropper flies and rolling in the line.
I swapped to a three fly cast again and put a mini cat on the point. My first half dozen casts went unheeded but then just as I toyed with another change a fish followed it right in to the boat and lunged at it as I was finally forced to lift off. I could see its wake all the way in.
My next cast same spot hooked me a fish. Same one? Who knows?
Another 2lber but things went quiet. It was getting darker by now and we decided to move to another spot behind another island And covered a few rising fish.
Nothing was happening and Kenny said he wanted to move the boat, I wound in to let him move, a fish rose right in front of him, he cast out again and got it first cast. A wee bit annoying
I used the pause for a final swap and put on a small cdc hopper.
A fish rose at range and I managed a cast right to its head and once again it came up and took it, feeling it was well hooked I started to bring it in quickly and then without warning it simply went slack on me.
Just wasn’t getting the breaks. ( It also helps that when you DO get the breaks, you hold on to them not let them go!) I think Gav had three and Paul four. We, I think came about 9th on the night but I think it’s the first time none of the B team blanked!
