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Powered by Twitter Tools It is half five .. dawn is approaching .. I can hear bait fish …not see them as dawn is approaching ! Need to be at work for half nine!
Powered by Twitter Tools You would be forgiven with thinking that I have done pretty much no fishing over the last couple of weeks – you would in fact be wrong – I have had two trips after trout – one to my small shit pipe stream and one to the Clyde. The Shit Pipe Stream was weird – it was a surreal evening – for a couple of reasons. One I have to attend meetings at a building fairly close to this stream which makes me feel kinda weird, almost as if I am playing hooky from work or something. And two, for some reason I got given a serious dose of the heeby jeebies. Let’s talk more about the jeebies just now. You see every now and then (and I hope this is the case with you) my imagination starts to run riot and I start to imagine all sorts of weird stuff to scare the willies out myself – crazy madmen with big teeth, Giant Killer Rabbits, wolves, being stalked by tigers etc – the usual terrifying scary stuff. What did not help the jeebies was the fact I kept coming across animal carcasses..  Ripped to shreds by a black panther no doubt... I found at least three dead sheep carcasses – one was pretty fresh as well – you would think the farmer has some kind of obligation to dispose of the body instead of letting them rot away in the field. Anyway – I started to imagine it was an escaped tiger that had killed all the sheep – hearing rustling in the bushes did not help. It is not the first time I have beat a hasty retreat from some bushes – I mind a few years ago hearing growling coming from a huge tract of bushes next to a loch in the hills nearby. I almost shat myself that time as well.  Bow to my camera skillz.... Very strange how the heebie Jeebies can affect you – I mean it does not happen often just enough to make you wonder what it is that has actually set it off – I am pretty sure seeing the dead animals around triggered some kind of caveman response in my brain to keep me aware of the surroundings. Anyhow – in my terrified state I managed one trout – I am actually amazed that this river produces such nice trout – this place makes the Kelvin look and smell like a crystal clear chalk stream.  La' Shiet Peep Still – like I say the trout are nice and are obviously turned into mutants by all the chemicals..  Shit Pipe Trout By the way – as I write this I just noticed an enormous house spider run across the floor a couple of times – these spiders are huge and your house is full of them – you only see them as Autumn approaches though as they are out looking for some sex – the devils! Anyhoo – I caught the above trout in a lovely wee seam of water – it was fast flowing and maybe a a dozen feet long – I was using a dry and dropper and the trout went bananas.  Wee Seam You can see what I mean. As the Shit Pipe stream is next to some serious housing estates I listened to a huge party taking place with live music, shouting and general hilarity – I think it may have been some kind of outdoor wedding as there was a bouncy castle for the kids – fishing to live music was kinda weird. My next trip was too the Clyde a few nights later – a warm day and a nice humid evening – blue winged olives on the water (amongst others) and me and Paul stayed until dark – Paul caught one and pricked a dozen – I managed a dozen and pricked a couple of dozen – more to do with chance than anything.  Dark Trout All the trout bar my first were caught on the dry fly – I had set up with a dry and dropper and with my first cast into a riffle had hooked into a trout – it took me below the pool into some faster water and then was gone – such is life. Eventually I started to spot rising trout – they were always very small rises however if you looked at the water in just the right way and watched carefully you would always see some rising trout.  Spotty Trout We fished until dark..parking ourselves at a long pool so that we could see rises in the moonlight – caught another couple in that pool. It was fully dark by 10pm – what with the spiders on the hunt for mates and the dark now getting here earlier and earlier you can tell that Autumn is now fast approaching. I read an article stating that Autumn may be delayed due to the exceptionally cold winter – personally I do not see that happening. Tell you what though – you know what this time of year is good for – Pike! Bring it on! Sometimes when I am at work I actually am allowed a break … I leave the office, cross the road and am then on the banks of the river leven … it flows out of Loch Lomond.
Powered by Twitter Tools I have finally caught up with myself on the tenuous fishing photos – ok that was a bit of a mid way blip however I shall endeavour to keep a single weekly picture going – I put it down to the increase of fishing #grin#  30/52 I found the above rather nice gesture in the park on a ledge – nothing says romantic fool like some wild flowers stuck in an empty bottle of cheap wine. It conjours up visions of teenage love and possibly drunken advances….or maybe just someone decided to litter in style..  31/52 Number 31 is a classic – this stuff appears to be appearing more and more on the banks of the Kelvin – I am noticing it more after the river walk a couple of weeks ago – anglers are warned not to touch it if you break some stems – its sap can cause you to burn and blister – I read somewhere about a guy who’s skin is still photosensitive years later because of its evil juice..  31/52 To be fair number 31 is in fact an old picture so do not go panicking at not being able to fish – I just thought I would use it as an example of just how out of action the river can get – hot chocolate indeedy. Phew – up to date! You can see more tenuous fishing photos here So I received a phone call from a pal – he was heading out to my “Shit Pipe” river – meanwhile I am having a night at home as my better half is on night shift – there was a time that having a wife that worked shifts was great – now with a child all bets are off. I received the call to say he had just lost a nice trout on a nymph – he reckoned it was round a pound – he was using a dry and dropper. Using a dry and dropper has been pretty much the way I have been fishing over the last couple of trips out and I have been doing pretty well with it – I am planning on a trip to my other wee stream at some point and remembered the fact I was down to about 2 nymphs in my box. Somehow I had managed to leave the majority of nymphs in gigantic trout that stubbornly pretended they were rocks and stuck fast to the bottom of the river – sometimes they were caught in trees next to the Kelvin. I got my gear out – I used some lovely Poly Seal that gave the nymphs a great translucency about them..  They looked nice and buggy... The fur comes in pretty much all colours you would ever want a bug to look like – usually I have two colours of nymphs – natural rabbit fur or dyed olive rabbit fur.  Fly Rite Poly Seal For this evenings nymphs I used some olive and some kinda maroon stuff – I was pleased with the results. As I was having a look through my box I came across something I had totally forgot about – some vouchers for the Glasgow Angling Centre – I reckon I am going to get my ass along there tomorrow and by some Tungsten Beads as sometimes I feel my nymphs are just a tad on the light side – sometimes you want them to sink down fast and really scape that bottom.  Sexy Vice... Heck – I enjoyed tying up those nymphs – I sat and drank a glass of wine with a cheesy sci fi film on in the background – it was great fun. I imagined how many trout I may catch on those nymphs (it is the wine that makes me optimistic) rather than how many would get stuck in trees or stuck in the back of my jacket. I received a picture text message later in the evening from my pal at the stinky river..  And it was caught on a .... …it was caught on a Woolly Bugger – Oh Man, I thought, I have about one of those left in my box as well. Turns out he had been losing loads of nymphs so had decided to try for the nice trout he had lost on the nymph when he had first got there – the lovely trout had nailed the bugger as soon as it hit the water. Looks like I will be tying up some Wooly Buggers next too. Busy is an understatement – with both family life and fishing. I have been enjoying looking with wonder at the small things in nature through my sons eyes – we have spotted lots of young frogs over the last week and we always stop to examine them before carefully sending them on their way..  Fun with frogs... I think since the last time I wrote I have been fishing a few times and caught a fair number of trout – had a few trips to the Kelvin and a trip to the Clyde – all were fun. My most recent trip to the Kelvin was during a lull in the rain of the last couple of weeks – I had planned to fish my “shit pipe” river however my wife wanted me to stick around the Kelvingrove Park in case she needed a lift – I was happy to oblige. The “Shit Pipe” river is a little stream I found that is criss crossed with lots of pipes – considering the amount of raw sewage that goes into the stream the name stuck.. Now that I have done my part for the Kelvin habitat survey and pinpointed areas that have problems with invasive plants I now find some of them imposing and alien in the way they tower over me at the river bank..  Can you spot the odd one out? The day was overcast and warm – the grass was wet and it was very “close”. In fact I am going to leave that session and tell you about a wee incident that happened last week – it just popped into my mind. I hit the Kelvin one evening as conditions seemed damn near perfect and after a few casts looked up the river to see a crowd of folk in the bushes – one of them had a backpack – a bit like the one out of Ghostbusters. Anyway – it turned out it was none other than Willie Yeomans ( Scientist and all round fish boffin) out giving a talk to a group of people from some horticultural society (I think). The person with the Ghostbuster back pack was in fact electrofishing and catching all manner of tiny fish while Willie was giving the talk and showing what they were finding – Willie introduced me and the group of people all smiled a hello – I felt like a commoner at a banquet. There was one problem – the electrofishers were having a problem getting a trout – I made a joke that I could have caught two in that time..  Da Da Da Da Da Dad - Ghostbusters!!! I wandered up to the Sanitary Towel pool as I wanted to actually get some fishing done and approximately two casts later I had a nice trout for Willie to show the group. I was chuffed about that – it is not often the God’s of chance smile on you however it seems to happen a lot in the Kelvin – must be something in the water. Anyhoo – I fished on Sunday for a few hours and caught maybe a half dozen trout – there were a few stocked trout mixed in with them – you can tell they are stocked trout as they look absolutely stunning – fin perfect with lovely big spots, they tend to swim about innocently before finally getting a bit panicky at the last minute – not like the crazy indigenous Kelvin trout that instantly go bananas and look quite frankly a little bit f*cked.  A little bit f*cked? I fished on and caught a nice stocky at the Half Penny Bridge – a women took my photo from the bridge – sometimes I feel like a piece of meat beside the river – if sex was personified it would be an angler stuffed into a pair of leaking chest waders carrying a fly rod – he would be wearing a green hat the sex god that he is.  Long steady pools... Look at the picture above – it will be a familiar site to many – to those of you that do not know Glasgow understand that there are many people walking along the banks on each side of the river and within a few hundred yards there is the busy West End of Glasgow. As I fished I heard many gasps – “look there is someone fishing down there” As usual as it was a busy day I spoke to many people who wanted to know if the river was clean enough for fish to live in.  Tree Pool I am actually amazed that some people can sit in their office blocks and watch guys catching Salmon in the pool directly below them. I was planning on a trip to my “Shit Pipe” river tomorrow night however I am reminded that my other half is working so that must be scrubbed – I past by it today and it was running with its usual weird tinge – I watched a trout rise and tried to tell a female co worker why a trout was so special – I think she believed me. I never met another angler the whole day on Sunday – I felt as if I had a private beat all to myself – nobody wants to fish for trout now that the Salmon are in the river – I find this both a shame and uplifting – a shame that some anglers see them as 2nd class citizens in some way and uplifting as it means they are not being targeted and harmed. I have watched over the last few years as trout have been shunted into a corner as just something to pass the time while the runs of Salmon are waited for – I have met anglers that are happy to kill trout without any thought to guys that might actually enjoy catching them a couple of times. I have watched the same old situation that develops on every river in Scotland that has runs of Salmon – plain old Salmon snobbery. Snobbery towards guys that are just old fashioned and want to catch a trout of any size – I have said it before and will say it again I am happy to catch a 6inch trout and will proudly post a picture of it as I am to show a 12 inch trout. I think the humble trout is the most beautiful little fish in the world – if someone truly “got it” with trout they would never try and deceive such an innocent creature with a worm or glittering bit of metal again – they would stick to some fur tied to a tiny hook that does actually roughly look like its normal everyday food. I keep hearing about this snobbery of guys fishing with fly rods and I do not understand it – if anyone should feel marginalised on the Kelvin it should be the guys that fly fish for trout – I mean there are only about a dozen of us! I do not think it is snobbery – I think it is wonder at why people don’t look at trout in the same way. But hey – I don’t wanna be preachy – I don’t have to tell you guys my views – do I? On the kelvin just now .. it is a lovely height but is a little brown .. anyone joining me?
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