the inbetween days

With the end of the season a little under a month away now there's a sense of urgency to enjoy what's left of it, but at the same time thoughts are beginning to think of Grayling in the months ahead, and with that in mind Col and I fished a burn yesterday which contains both trout and grayling.

Water clarity didn't look great with some recent rain so we set up with the ever reliable glister bug suspended below a big dirty polly.

 the glister bug did the trick in the first pool taking a couple of trout and relieving any concerns about the water clarity.

 we worked our way upstream taking turns which is a relaxing way to fish, plenty of time to take in the bankside surroundings.

a few trout were landed, both on the nymph and the dry with many more missed

jumbo minnows were also keen to have a nibble at the Glister bug, this burn seems to be full of them.

I suspect one or two risers that I missed were Grayling and Col definitely lost a good Grayling on the nymph right at the net, still its good to know that their about, hopefully they'll start to show in bigger numbers in the cooler months ahead.

the season's moving on

 September has arrived and with it she brings cooler mornings and shorter nights, the feeling that summer has gone for another year and the realisation that their is only one month to go until the end of the trout season. The highland stream we fished yesterday had that back end feel about it, although it was a nice enough day the blustery winds had battered the trees and the side streams were filling with leaves, another month or so and the  river will be full of them.

Unfortunately the overnight rain had made no impact on the rivers height, still down to its bones, Some usually good pools lacked the pace needed to bring them to life but some pools are always fast and deep enough to hold trout  and we picked up trout from these places.

 there was hardly a riser to be seen all day, a few had a go for my dry but I missed them all! the nymph took all our trout.

were always hoping for that better than average trout that this stream produces and today Col got his reward with a fine golden trout from a favourite pool of his.

 the river was far from its best today, it could really have been doing with some extra water in it but it was a fine day to be out anyway, might be next season now before the next visit I'm looking forward to it already.

  

a night at the Prawns

Went to Burntisland on Friday  to try my new sabpolo hooks and i also as well as the power isome i had some raw prawn to try for bait.

Unforunately there was a bit colour in the water , and i feel my intented target , wrasse dont seem to feed as well in such conditions. I stsrted round the front on the breakwater but it got windy and uncomfortable in the strenghthening easterly , so i headed for the harbour where ive had wrasse as well. First drop down with the prawn i had a few nice fat coalies.

this was followed buy some smaller coalies and loads of tiny codling  .

Then the extras from  sponge bob square pants started making an appearance.

common blenny

butter fish

goldsinny

long spined sea scorpion

so that was my lot, decided to pack in when the rain came on . lots of fun on light gear ,was hoping for a Ballan wrasse , maybe ill get one next trip just hope for clearer  seas.

An evening cast

Had another trip to my local yesterday evening . Fished the same stretch i did the  other night, as i enjoyed it , water looked lower with a little less flow and it was quite blustery , but fish were up for the usual  nymphs and dries . A good we session. The nights are fair drawing in now and usually they are done as far as rising fish  by now ,but i  think the hot summer we are currently  and the temps holding up in the evening is keeping the insects active in the evening , lots of spinners about. What a great summer we have had.
a few snaps:

a peacefull afternoon on the grayling burn followed by a night at the hospital!

  Yesterday afternoon I  decided to fish a burn which contains a healthy population of grayling as well as trout, it can be a tricky one to get right with clarity often not that great. The pool I started on is a deep one and pleasingly there was a couple of risers going steady in the head.

the cdc & elk did the trick with a nice pounder coming to hand followed by his smaller pal, a good start.

in this pool fish were smutting, I rummaged about in my fly boxes and found a wee klink to put on.

after missing a couple of fish I hooked a cracking trout which gave me a great fight on my wee six footer.

this is one of my favourite grayling pools and there was a fish smutting under the tree

 it turned out to be a trout and a good one too!

I worked my way upstream taking the a few more trout but surprisingly no Grayling today



got home around six to find out that my wife was up at A&E with a nasty cut on her head after falling of her bike, unbelievably about five minutes later my sons friend was at the door to tell me that Jamie had fallen of some rocks up at the park, another nasty head wound and a trip to A&E, ended up spending the night in the kids ward until he got the all clear this morning, wife and son are on the mend now!

Back down the local

It feels like a while since i last fished for trout, so i was keen to re associate myself with running water. The river looked spot on crystal clear without all the algae. it fished great fish from every pool and a few runs , and pockets to a mixture of dries and nymphs the shucked cdc doing great . Lost a hefty  fish on the nymph, around the 2-3lb mark but i'll be back for him . Took a small seatrout on the nymph from pocket water. Waders starting to leak quite bad now , maybe time to break out a new pair.

some pics:

Pollocks and paracetamol at the Pinnacles

For our last day we were tempted to go back to the loch we fished on the Friday, but that would be predictable , so we went to a new mark on the north eastern side of the island known as the pinnacles.
On the way we stopped for plasters and paracetamol as Brian had a sorehead., the Skye version of the tour DE France made the journey a bit slower than usual we passed a few landmarks such as the old man of Storr.

It was a lovely day the sea flat calm we arrived an hour after high tide , plan was to fish the tide down then back up again , with a bit lrf  during the middle part of the day just to mix it up and probably

more importantly give our arms a rest.

First few casts i took 3 small pollock,  Brian took another then it went dead.

So we went looking for a decent rock with good depth to fish from, depth seems to be the key, a deep gulley fringed with kelp being ideal. brian spotted a rock which looked good so we went there.
He quickly took the first decent fish of the day on his lure rod he had taken a gulp Sand eel.

I stuck stubbornly with the fly rod , couldn't get a fish on a clousers so changed to a chartreuse and white deceiver dressed on a 1/0 hook , this seemed to be getting a response , the fishing was extremely visual with fish appearing behind my fly 20-30ft down following , sometimes they would take most times they would turn away at the last minute. Sometimes a take would be registered by watching the White fly only for it to disappear, then it was fish on.

 Others you could clearly make out the fish , and you would be willing for it to take, on one occasion a massive pollock followed my chartreuse and red clousers, only for it to turn its nose up last minute I could almost work out the unconvinced expression on his face as it slid away into the depths , which only left me punching the air in frustration and shouting obscenities in its general direction.

I now also had a sore head, perhaps too much sun? So I went for a walk , by the time I returned Brian announced he had just had his first lrf wrasse, he followed that up withe two more and a colourful long spined sea scorpion.

beautiful or ugly?

I managed a poor cod when I decided to have a break from the fly, then after trying unsuccessfully for a wrasse I decided to try for pollack on the soft plastics, when I got a few modest pollock.

A late return to the fly rods seen a few more pollack followed by a late appearance of some coal fish , speaking to another angler  it seemed we hadn't done to bad in the bright conditions as many had blanked even the boats struggled.

On that orange fly again

That concluded our fishing in skye as the following morning we headed for home. Another trip wiser we will be returning again next year for some more of the same.