a loch saves the day

After studying the weather forecast for various destinations Col and I decided to head to one of our favourite highland rivers on Saturday, there was the chance of rain in the afternoon but nothing to serious. We set off a wee bit earlier than normal to give ourselves time to fish a loch which is also covered on the same permit, and then the plan was to fish the river in the afternoon. Whilst picking up our permits we stocked up on supplies for the day, a couple of steak bridies each and some irn bru, sorted! The first bridies didn't make it out of the shop car park, they were tasty enough, but could have been doing with a bit more steak we thought, a six out of ten!

a burn near the loch





 On to the loch I set up with a team of three wets and Col fished a dirty polly dry. An hour or so later I had had a couple of offers to the wets but wasn't that encouraged, then in a section of the loch with the wind on our backs Col spotted some risers a fair bit out and soon lost a fish on the dry before bringing one to hand.

I changed over to the dry too and landed a trout before we left for the river.



 The river was very low and crystal clear,  things started of well enough with Col taking a small fish from the first run. The optimism didn't last though as we fished through some usually productive water only turning a couple of trout on the way.

  Apart from the lack of trout there was also three other anglers  following us upstream which was a bit un relaxing to be honest so we decided to cut our losses and head back to the loch.

viola

After the long walk back to the car and the much needed second bridie of the day we were back on the loch in the late afternoon, Col wasted no time getting in on the action, the trout were taking a liking to his dirty polly, the thing to do was cast it out and leave it for a minute, if no takes were forthcoming static, retrieve it back when often the trout would hit it.

the trout were in taking mood and it made for a fun afternoon after the hard slog on the river

Col showing off with two at once!

so our day didn't go quite according to plan with the river being out of sorts , but it was good to have the loch up our sleeve to save the day.