an afternoon on the Boag burn

The burn I cut my teeth on as a boy is known locally as the Boag,  here many a happy hour was spent after school and at the weekends fishing for it's pretty little brownies, firstly with the worm before progressing to the fly rod. These days I all to often overlook it's charms in favour of other waters with bigger trout and today was going to be no different. I intended to spend the afternoon on another burn in the area but found it running quite high with questionable clarity, after trying a few its normally productive pools without a touch decided to up sticks and head for the Boag instead.

   i was pleased to see the water clarity was good on the Boag as i was a little worried it might still be murky after last weeks rain.

its always a good confidence booster to when that first trout is landed, this one took a glister bug.

 the journey upstream took me through a tunnel

i picked up a few trout on the brown wire nymph

 a public footpath follows much of the burn upstream, a lot of dog walkers today, i was about to fish this pool before i was joined by two golden retrievers who bounded through it to see what i was up too!

the most public stretch of the burn wasn't that productive to be honest so i made haste through it until i was away from the path. 

a nice pool away from the path

  

 sport picked up again with another couple of trout to end an enjoyable afternoon on my old stomping ground, think next time i'll avoid the most public stretch altogether and get of the beaten track further upstream.

The Wind and the Willows

I'm on holiday just now so been keen to get in some early season fishing. Fortunately so far it has coincided with a spell of relatively dry weather , on the other hand it has been rather blustery, and as i type  30mph winds are battering off my windows.

behind the willows

On Monday the 17th i headed to the big river , a chance to break out the 9fter for the first time this season , i arrived just after 12pm and found my first riser in the lee of the wind behind some overhanging willows as i walked downstream.He was a steady riser , and took my klink first drift over , and while i was playing him his pal gave himself away , pretty much peas in a pod.

carrying on downstream i repeated the same feat , another brace, before walking back upstream . some great pools but not a fin stirred , the hatch in truth wasn't great only the odd olive promptly caught by the wind and blown off the water. I only managed one further fish before deciding that was it for the day.

The Tuesday i went to my local water, got down for back of 12pm , it wasn't long before some olives came off , and i promptly took a small trout which gave himself away only yards from where i was sitting waiting for the drama of the hatch in my banker pool to unfold. But despite a few flies coming down a slow typical good bet for early season pool nothing seemed to show interest so i moved up to the next banker pool, i was really expecting something to show as the olives trickled down in ones or twos , but nowt.

I carried on a mile or so upstream finally to find another dimple riser , strangely though the hatch seemed to get stronger , and i cant help but wonder if i should have sat it out in those "banker spots" i guess ill never know. Slow going but putting in in perspective we are only days into the new season. 

Somethings not so slow though is the bankside flora . The wood anemone was fit to burst and a few lesser celandine's were starting to show. I don't know whats in store the rest of the week looks like dropping temperatures and heavy rain tomorrow, hope it doesn't effect the rivers too much?

back on the burns

With the blustery conditions on opening day I didn't fancy battling against the wind on the main river so opted for a local burn and a bit of shelter instead. The burn I chose can be moody and isn't particularly attractive in places  but it does have the attraction of  bigger than average trout from time to time.

 With no fly life on the water I set up with the usual dirty polly/glister bug combo and began to work my way upstream searching likely pools and runs. I wasn't expecting the first fish which took the dry behind some overhanging branches near the tail of a pool, a nice fish to start of the season with.

upstream in a pool which is usually reliable for a fish i missed one on the dry, a couple of casts later in the same spot he took the glister nymph.

 after that i fished through a lot of water but only managed one more wee trout before heading back to the car, pleased to get of the mark for the new season.

    today i opted for a burn again, one of my favorites, but things didn't go according to plan

 started of ok taking a lovely wee trout but then i noticed another angler upstream so decided to head back to the car and try another burn a few miles away.

 i picked up a few trout from the second burn but in truth it was hard work, perhaps not switched on yet?

i love the sight of primulas at the start of the season

 still it was good to be out on the burns again, its that great time of the year where its all to look forward too.

Opening Day 2014

I recently turned 40, and received a go pro camera, so today was its first outing, a few teething problems  but , eventually i think ill get the hang of it. For a opening day the fishing was very good ,the flies hatched but only in small numbers, a few fish though were willing to come up for a dry and even a few that didn't were happy with a nymph. anyway here's my first effort , obviously need to angle the headcam mount differently in future clips.

Orkney weekend

Back yesterday from a  long weekend in Orkney visiting my mum, i'm not usually up there so early on in the year but fancied having a go for sea trout in the salt as their season  got underway on Feb 25th. Having read a couple of good articles on the subject it seems as if the spring sea trout will take the fly readily, the difficult part is locating them, and this was ringing in my ears as on Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning  when i drew a blank after trying a few different locations around the island, some of which I've encountered sea trout from before in the autumn months. I could feel my confidence draining, there's a lot of coastline to cover, i wished i had some kind of sea trout detector to find them!

Saturday would effectively be my last real chance to bag myself a sea trout with no fishing for migratory fish on Sundays so there was nothing else for it but to get out there and try again. I decided to try a location i had fished the day before but this time rather than concentrate on the most obvious area went on for a wonder down the coastline a bit. I found a  bay i liked the look of so thought i would give it a try, wading  my way through it after a few casts there was a little resistance which felt different from the usual hang up in the bladderwrack, next cast and my suspicions were confirmed as i hooked a lively wee sea trout which cleared the air on hook up, i was over the moon to finally find a sea trout.

  more nips and pulls every other cast and another sea trout followed before it went quite

 this is when i was unsure what to do next, do i continue to wade forward through the bay to try and find them again? or will that spook the entire shoal? i decided to carefully get out of the water and rest the spot for half an hour and go try another area for a wee while, on my return i was straight into fish again, some coming from within feet of the shoreline on the high tide, great sport for a while with loads of hook ups and takes too before it quietened down again, none were big but great sport.

   

the orange fritz with bead chain eyes was working well

as was the platinum blonde

i decided to drive to another spot further up the coast but on arrival noticed another angler had already beat me to it, never mind, since i was in the area i visited a relative for a chin wag and a much needed coffee and cake,  after that i returned to my original spot in the now falling tide, i had a few more hook ups and one or two of them were of a decent size, but failed to land any of them.

another wee fella from earlier on in the day

late Saturday and Sunday afternoon  i took some pictures around and about the island, weather wise it was great for the time of year. 

the Italian chapel 

   

Italian prisoners of war joined two nissen huts to make the chapel during the second world war

an old tractor going back to nature

footprints

the ring of brodgar

it's sailing days are over

spring tides

leaving at noon on monday i got up super early to squeeze in a couple of hours fishing at first light, i didn't find any sea trout in the little bay this time but lost a small fish in the weed further down the shoreline, unlike the other day there didn't seem to be any more of his pals in the same area, maybe because of the big tide? i'm not sure but i continued to work my way along and a while later had a good fish maybe around the 2lb mark follow the fly right to my feet before taking the fritz, unfortunately the hook didn't hold which was a pity because that would have been the icing on the cake but with no time left i reluctantly had to leave. This weekends been a learning curve with highs and lows, not easy fishing but if i could do it again tomorrow i would right in there, the chance of a big bar of silver is to much to resist.    

A Crack at the Bass

This weekend we were hoping for a shot at the bass , watching the forecast just to make sure the winds were favourable. So with gusty south westerly blowing we fancied our chances of it being in good fishable condition, and on our way down from the roadside there wasn't a whitehorse in sight, and sure enough it looked perfect when we arrived at midday at the venue tackled up and ready to take on the waves.
First though before the tide got really moving we decided to have a bash at the blennies, it was great fun lowering our power isome along side rocks had the wee blighters sticking there heads out and pouncing on our hooks, most came adrift on the strike but a few stuck.

After half an hour we decided to get our heads down to try and tackle the bass, hours went buy as we thrashed the sea in various corners with our clousers , to no avail, still we kept our heads up and carried on. Then a splash caught my eye followed by a fish clearing the water, I immediately thought seatrout, Brian reckoned bass.

Anyway it gave us renewed enthusiasm and after a move brian hooked into a bass, it was really good to see, he had his second and third before I managed my first, but they kept coming steady for an hour or so, nothing big just typical school bass but great fun, it feels like boom or bust type fishing at times.

The sport then began to subside as the offshore wind gathered pace , and we decided to call it a day fairly contented with our days fishing. It was nice just to catch some bass as Brian pointed out it had been over a year since we last did so.

Like a coat of arms

Feeling Flat in February

January and February have been really difficult to get out and do any sort of angling at all in my neighbourhood. A contrast of high winds and and ill timed downpours have seen to that. Even this weekends plans took a detour at the last minute. Brian and I were prepared to go and have a shot at the bass , when a northerly westerly showed up on the forecast . A wee look at  comfortable areas to fish took us too a Fife beach, the first time we have given it a shot called Ravenscraig beach.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was a charming  wee spot,  that gave us shelter with its distinctive  crags and ruins an at our backs with a steady off shore breeze. the day its self was pleasant with no rain  it felt almost spring like and that sparked up conversation of the coming season , trout , pike and SWFF,  float-tubing  amongst other species and methods , really looking forward for all that kicking off.

The flounder fishing for the time of year wasn't too bad either , between us we managed perhaps 10 to a dozen small flounder between us  ,  but like other beaches we have sampled on the Fife coast it went off on the last couple of hours approaching high tide. Still it was really nice to get out  with the rods and a bonus to  catch our first flounders of 2014.

watching for a bite

With the trout season now fast approaching I've been quietly going about  a bit preparation , a few new purchases such as a new   fly line ,a new pair of forceps , and I've had a few small sessions on the vice producing the usual klinks, shucked cdc's , dirty Pollies , wire nymphs the odd spider etc.

A start on the dries

 shucked cdc

Lots more to do but still another 4 weeks to go, roll on the brownies!