The Lake of Menteith has just seen some record-breaking hauls in the second semi-final of the Scottish Club Championships, with 60 anglers setting a new catch best, boating 641 fish for 1733lbs.
Congratulations to James Litster, the head of youth development with the Scotland teams, who finished top rod with 31 fish on dries mainly in the Gap.
His Neilston FF B team mates Brian MacKenzie and Tam Burnett also did very well, netting 22 and 19 apiece, which created a new record team catch in the Scottish Club Championships.
With the current drop in temperatures, the fishing on waters like the lake will be red hot again for the next while after that mini heatwave.
I preferred to book a session over the bank holiday weekend in the baking sun when they were nipping tails and turning away from the flies at the last minute, just to keep me honest.
When they’re not co-operating, it’s a good time to go all through the methods and fly boxes to turn up a trout.
I’ve seen people trimming tails on their marabou lures after repeatedly striking into nothing when another follower is missing the hook.
My boat partner prefers to throw caution to the wind and fish as fast as possible.
Fishing fast as... can fool the short takers by not giving the trout an opportunity to think.
Once in pursuit, a mixture of competitiveness with other fish, curiosity and the desire to capture prey will take over and lead to a positive take.
If you cannot see the fish in pursuit but feel several taps, don’t stop.
Keep retrieving at the same speed for as long as possible and wait until the line locks up.
Good patterns for this tactic include Snakes fished with a roly-poly retrieve and Boobies waked across the surface.
I think I’m a bit of a lazier trout angler, though, so I went from the washing line to fishing nymphs and buzzers as slow as possible, trying to keep in contact to respond to plucks on the line.
When super-slow is still too fast I don’t quite have the patience to fish them totally static under a bung for long, so I made a quick switch up to my go-to static option of searching around with a team of generic dries .
Little smutty patterns that look a bit like everything Crippled midge’s CDC Emergers, a small Bob’s Bits or Hopper-style patterns can drag fish up to feed, especially in clear water and fingers crossed they’ve committed to the fly.
Swapping down sizes and keeping my line regularly degreased until eventually a few fish were fooled caught and filleted just right for the BBQ.
