Decision: Pike or Trout?

So I had one evening to go fishing and consequently a decision to make – would it be Pike or Trout?

It was the conditions that made me wonder – you see I pretty much can only get out after 7pm once the boys are put to bed which pretty drastically cuts down on fishing time if driving any distance. The night before I had fished the Kelvin for Salmon (with a spinning rod) so wanted some proper fly action. I studied the weather and noticed a very definite divide in conditions – if I traveled to the Clyde the temp would be be around the 12 degrees mark with an east wind and if I traveled up to the big loch it would be warmish and muggy. The big loch won and Alex picked me up just after seven.

Let me tell you right now that even with a hundred or so casts I managed to blank – I spooked a Pike however none of the critters wanted to play with me. Alex on the other hand managed to hook three of the brutes and land two of them – one of which was his personal best.

Still, it is not all about catching – no seriously – it was a gorgeous evening,  not too warm and not cold, overcast and a flat calm.

The clouds were huge in the sky – that might seem weird however if you are a cloud watcher you know what I mean – there did not seem to be just one single big cloud, more hundreds of massive clouds that made you feel small under them. I was using my new evening Polaroids with rather nifty yellow lenses – I am always amazed when I wear polaroids that actually seem to brighten the place up. They did the job well although the fancy side shields were not needed as they was no side sun to bother us.

 “Look Serious” I instructed the fishing buddy as he played his croc – “make the beast jump” and “try and get it to swim past me and I can take its picture underwater”

There is always something a bit of intimidating about big Pike when you have not handled them in a while – when you have a fly lodged in a Pike’s mouth and the creature is coming towards you and you just know that you are gonna have to pick it up and get that fly out you can get a little anxious – only with the first couple  though and then once you know that your fingers are not going to get scraped when you hold it correctly and you have the proper tools to get the fly out your confidence comes back….

We did not see a lot of crashing Pike – at dusk there was two Pike that crashed into its prey – Alex managed to catch his however mine never came back.

Seeing as how I was catching no fish I took pictures of my rod…

It was a great evening anyway, there is something relaxing about being up to your waist in water and casting to likely spots – it improves your accuracy as you are trying to get your fly right next to the weeds. It is funny that, as after a while pretty much every cast can be as accurate as you want it – often the fly lands within an inch of the weeds without too much thought.

It is Saturday morning just now – I am wondering if the Kelvin has cleared at all for an other evening trouting?

Looking at the SEPA water level site I think maybe it will be ok..

Lets see if I can score some brownie points eh!