The Time – Friday and Saturday
The Venues – A river on the Friday chosen as someone else writes about it on their blog and I mailed them first for a name and then for where to park the bloody car, they must have thought I was a right chancer. On the Saturday we were going to fish Venachar for Pike and trout however the wind was so strong we had to drive to a more sheltered loch. You know it is bad when a guy drives up and says “I used to own this boat house and no way I would let anyone out there” . We were only being allowed the boat because Alex has a beard.
The Action – Aye, 6 fish in a solid 26 hours of fishing hours (split between two guys is pretty shit by any standards),still we had a good time with plenty of chat and banter. So what the heck went wrong?
Well, we fished.
We fished hard.
Two places, one river one Loch.
When we fished the river the wind was blowing unbelievably hard. The river was crystal clear and we just could not figure it out.
Our first loch destination the next day had to be changed due to huge waves.
On the loch we ended up on we bobbed around throwing streamers at Pike (we think).
We eventually fished for trout and caught a few.
Oh, I snapped the tip of my Sage SLT the day we fished on the river, weirdly I took this well possibly because I had been awake since 2am with the kids so was suffering severe sleep deprivation.
The Photos – You can click on the photos to make em’ full size..
The Analysis – It took a couple of days to sink in what happened to my Sage, thankfully on the day I had stuck my 4 weight Superfine in the bag as well so I got to use that with my 5 weight line (it cast great by the way).
This two day madness was in place of travelling down South to meet up with Matt from North Country Angler – a couple of nights were planned and then abandoned because of a mixture of shitty weather and family stuff. When I spoke to Matt it turns out he has been having a shit a season as I have, turning up at rivers to find them too big and brown.
F*ck knows where the trout were on the river, probably flying kites in that wind. I did actually have a kite in the back of my car and if Alex had said yes I would have had that bad boy out doing stunts. As it was we rolled cast to possibly the spookiest trout known to man. Every now and then I would think I had spotted a rise, turned out it was twigs falling off the trees.
The loch was great fun, the electric motor was grand and the chat was great. No Pike however even the hardened Pike heads who were also out struggled in the conditions and shared their knowledge with us. For some reason I always find Pike guys a lot more forthcoming with info than game anglers, friendly guys, you know? Maybe it is the madness of catching something so big and with such big teeth that is pleasing in some way to share eh?
We have a few weeks left until the end of the season, I am kinda hoping to have another bash at the trout before it all goes pear shaped. We have already planned another Pike trip.
Still, on the way driving to pick up Alex on Friday morning I noticed the stars were pretty incredible – at least the close season is good for a bit of astronomy.
Looks like you have been having issues with the winds as well. The wind sure does seem to be spooking the fish this season. Hopefully next season we will have some better weather.