| Post Marches Day - Linlithgow Loch |
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| Written by AlastairG | |
| Friday, 18 June 2010 | |
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The biggest challenge of the day was deciding on boat allocation as people were coming and going during this thirteen hours marathon session on the Loch. Once that had been established, there was a mad rush for the boats given that there was now only twelve hours and fifty nine minutes left.
David Armour set off for his favourite location at Dan Mackay’s point and was soon into a fish. Harry Millar in the Town Bay got into and lost what seemed to be a good fish judging by the bend in the rod. There didn’t seem to be an obvious hotspot and boats were soon fairly well spread out. The weed which looked desperate near the lodge, fortunately wasn’t at all bad further out so long as you kept the prop clear of it as it had a nasty habit of reducing the electric outboards to a crawl. That apart almost all of the water, including most of the shallower east end, was fishable. Tactics were to keep the flies fairly near the surface and George Thomson hit the jackpot when the first fish he took let a bloodworm slip from its mouth. Always one to take a hint, he changed to fishing a bloodworm imitation and was soon having success. This was aided by his boat partner’s uncanny ability to find where the fish were, matched only by his inability to actually catch any. Had George managed to hold on to all his fish, he would have ended up with double figures. The fish came on for brief spells with long periods of inactivity which could be quite frustrating as it always seemed as if there was going to be a nice rise on only to find that after half a dozen or so fish showing, everything went quiet again. Even so, fish were being caught and by the end of the day, after the traditional break for fish suppers, eighteen fish were weighed in for just over thirtynine pounds. George Thomson topped the table with his five for ten pounds. Special mention must go to Harry Millar and Gordon Brown for their well-conditioned brown trout. One of them was rather unattractive with an elongated, curiously flattened head but his fish looked fine. A very large brown trout, estimated at well in excess of six pounds, was seen cruising along with dorsal and tail fins out of the water less than twelve feet from one of the boats. It obviously hadn’t reached that size by taking artificial flies as it showed no interest in the offerings presented to it. There was clearly a good stock of fish in the loch but it did require patience and perseverance to make the most of the day. Some of the members found the session a bit on the long side, the fact that the grass beside the path on the north bank was cut twice during the competition suggests that they might have had something! |
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