Theheatison
ONE of our brightest international prospects took the No1 spot in heat nine of the Scottish Club Championships.
Connor Campbell of Kinross Angling Club landed 14 cracking Lake of Menteith rainbows – more than double the catch of his team-mate and mentor Allan Smith, one of Scotland’s top anglers.
Connor, whose grandad is Willie Wilson, the legendary Loch Leven former manager and boatman, took each of his fish on Yellow Owl drys.
Allan, the defending Champion of Champions, had seven, and the third member of the Kinross team, Ally Middlemass, had six.
The combined total of 27 fish for 58lb 15.2oz propelled the Kinross trio to the top of heat nine’s leader board.
Connor, Allan and Ally now go forward to the semi-final of the clubs and also to the Champion of Champions final where they will compete against each other for the coveted title.
Connor, 21, a greenkeeper, revealed that his decision to fish two size 12 Yellow Owls all night paid off when he landed his first fish within five minutes of starting.
Another five quickly followed, one of them about THERE’S an old adage about using a sprat to catch a mackerel but Edinburgh angler Andrew Ferrier used a rainbow trout to catch his personal best spurdog.
Andrew caught his 10lb 4oz fish in deep water at Loch Etive just as dusk was approaching.
Congratulations, Andrew. You will shortly be receiving details of your fantastic prize courtesy of top UK tackle makers Daiwa, our Fish of the Week sponsors. 6lb 8oz which was returned and given a weight of 2lb for the weigh-in.
A quiet spell followed but during the last half to threequarters of an hour, more followed into the darkening.
Connor said: “It was so dark I couldn’t see my flies and only reacted when I saw a movement. Sometimes one was on, other times there was nothing.”
By end of the night, 90 trout had been caught with 46 being released.
The second top club boat of the evening was the Grizzle Cats trio, John Morton, Ian Muir, and Jim Watson, who boated 11 fish for 27lb 14.5oz.
In third place were Gordon White, Richard Dignam and John McLeod of Thack AC, who also weighed in 11 fish for 27lb 7.8oz.
Kinross, Grizzle Cats and Thack now go forward to the semi-final of the clubs on August 25.
The top five anglers going through to the Champion of Champions final are Connor Campbell, Kinross AC, 14 fish for 28lb 9.8oz, Allan Smith, Kinross AC, seven fish for 17lb 0.3oz, John McLeod, Thack AC, six fish for 15lb 6.9oz, Ian Muir, Grizzle Cats, five fish for 13lb 5.4oz, and Ally Middlemass, Kinross AC, six fish for 13lb 5.1oz.
The best fish of the night fell to the rod of Calum Brodie, of the Butcher Boy Club, a 5lb 8.6oz rainbow.
The top club, top angler and captor of the best fish all received a bottle of malt whisky from sponsors Loch Lomond distillery.