Roaming in the Gloaming

Managed an evening session after work on the Kelvin – a lovely warm evening with good temps right up until the bats were on the water. River is low however still plenty of trout taking off the surface. I was surprised that the colour of the water is quite dirty looking and not that clear.

I had not fished up this section in quite some time and I met Paul and a newbie member at the Dog Pool. There was a rising trout at the far bank and a guy and his kid chucking stones at the water. We worked our way up the river and I caught a few small trout on the way up – trout were consistently rising and the fly life was fantastic. Something I have always loved about the Kelvin is that you can work your way up fishing the water, the trout are generally very free rising. It is always important to fish the wee riffles and if you spot a dimple and get the drift right the trout will often take, generally you only get one chance at it though, maybe two if you are lucky. Again, I was proven correct that you cannot tell a trout’s size by the rise form it makes. Sometimes folk will tell me that there are only small trout rising and when you catch it you find out that it is in fact a nice trout.

Seemingly the river was busy during the day with fishers however we only met one other angler – Watson! We chatted for a bit and then a cheekily targeted a trout that he was fishing for and I caught it second cast. It was my biggest trout of the night – sorry buddy! Paul was shaking his head in disbelief at my cheek as he too had been targeting trout that were actively feeding heavily and was seemingly “giving them a rest” when I bulldozed up behind him to show him how it’s done – I had failed at those ones though. I still cannot figure out what they were taking, I suspect it was something just under the surface.

I had some success with a size 24ish gnat however I was no quick enough when a couple of trout had a go at it. It was one of those occasions when a few trout are constantly taking flies in an area the size of a dinner plate and yet when your fly drifts over the it is jostled and jolted by the rise forms of the trout, extremely frustrating however still a lot of fun. I could do some of that action for ages – in fact I would rather be frustrated by rising trout trying to figure out just what the hell is going on than catch the odd trout that came out the blue.

I noticed a thread over on the River Kelvin Fishers page that folk were talking about the smell coming from the river – to be fair it does have a nickname of the “Smelly Kelly” and to be honest I quite like the smell. It is not sewage and is in fact caused by rotting vegetation and is quite an earthy smell. Folk have also been commenting on the amount of litter that is everywhere and the amount of debris in the water. Hauling the big stuff out is a never ending task and the litter is just soul destroying. There is a popular pool in the vet school that was covered in beer cans, empty cigarette packets and buckfast bottles – seemingly some guys were down at that pool during the day “fishing”

Sometimes I think we are the victims of our own success – Last year there was a concerted attempt by someone to lay the blame personally on the RKAA committee as if we were shedding car parts and buckfast bottles while we were in lockdown. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Folk talk now about what a great river for trout we have and I am mindful that it is due to the foresight of members over ten years ago that made this happen. Look, I am not going to take the responsibility for how good the trout fishing is however when we took over the running of the association I campaigned and insisted for a few things before I got involved – essentially I wanted all stocking of the river to cease and a mandatory ban on killing all trout. I also wanted a trout only ticket and to be allowed to fish on a Sunday. After this was put in place the trout numbers appeared to take small dip as the mutants were cleared out and then year on year the trout fishing has got better and better. Who would have thought that if you stop killing them they would live longer and get bigger? Of course it was not just through this blog, it took a lot of chatting to guys on the river bank and discussion on various forums before I managed to convince folk that this was the way forward. 10 years ago “social media” did not just mean Facebook, essentially it revolved around this blog and its associated forum and I guess I had a louder voice than most then – now any baboon can spout opinions and have “authority” and folk just agree with them because they don’t really know someone’s actual credentials.  I used to love reading the blogs of just normal guys that go fishing and catch fish from all over the country and now it seems like an old fart thing to do.

I do like the fact that I went from anonymity when I wrote on this blog to being extremely well known and recognisable to now back to anonymity again – means it can be more personal again and I like that. Maybe that is why I have not written as much over the last few years, I was deliberately cutting the wheat from the chaff – and you my friend are obviously the wheat.

Saying all that I am going to be a bloody hypocrite and repost all this on Facebook automatically – I do that is a dirty protest to stick it to the man!

See you at the protest!