What a bloody weekend. Lake of Menteith on Saturday and then down to gods own stadium on Sunday morning. Still haven’t recovered. Anyway Saturday was cold with a stiffish westerly breeze. My Rutland boat seat has finally given up the ghost, several years of increasing body weight bouncing up and down on it have taken their toll and they are extremely difficult to replace. So I am using my wychwood reserve seat which straps onto a thwart. Tastefully designed in black powder aluminium, the seat is clearly designed with a slim teen in mind rather than the average foc fly fisherman. Still, I was able to rest one cheek on the seat which took some of the strain.
the fishing was interesting. The usual washing line, fish were reported to be on the road shore and Kates Brae so off we went. It was clear that they had been hammered for the past week and for every firm hook up, there was at lest 4 times as many pulls, bangs and tweaks as the fish failed to commit. It is so clear that catch and release has a massive impact on fish behaviour. I finished with 5 on fabs, booby and buzzers. Best rod on our club was 10, I ended up joint 3rd.
There is a rather lovely boutique hotel on the banks of the Lake and it’s dining room looks over one of the Lakes hot spots. A calm bay fringed with reeds. I hooked my last fish tight into the reeds and thought ha, good, this will provide a spectacular show for those enjoying a late liquid lunch. It sure did. The fish wasn’t a stocky, more a 3lb bar of silver that in the shallow water put up a hell of a fight. With the stiff breeze the boat was getting forced into the reeds and despite me shouting at my fishing buddy to motor us out, he was asleep on the job and we were increasingly entangled. My only option was to try and net the fish as soon as possible by bullying it. I managed to get it about 5 yards from the boat when everything locked as it had taken the top dropper and the trailing flies had lodged fast on reeds. By now the fish was stuck fast, flapping on the surface with a ‘for fuck sake‘ expression. Jeez. By now my boat partner had started to manoeuvre the boat through the reeds towards the fish and I was finally able to net him, all the while he looked at me accusingly, release him quickly and untangle my leader from the reeds.
Seriously Bad Angling!
anyway, with that result I move into 3rd place in the club championship. Not that I’m in anyway competitive. :-)
the post script to this is I learned one of our International club members were out doing some serious practice the same day. Choosing to fish where there was no fish reported they took over 50 to the boat. Obscene.