Fish deep for success at Lake of Menteith

THE ONLY way to catch fish at the Lake of Menteith in the past week, apart from pike and the occasional daft rainbow, was to stick on a sinking line (medium to fast) and take the flies down deep.

The fish appear to be coming up for the occasional fry or fly then are quickly heading back down.

Buoyant flies appear to have an irresistible action as they follow the line down during a retrieve then rise up when the retrieve is halted.

For those anglers that crack this technique the rewards have been plenty.

The fish will be congregated in the deeper holes and the proven place to date is the North Inchmahome deeps.

A nglers are reporting 30-40 feet as the optimal depth.

In theory, a white fly will show up well to the fish if it is below them and a black fly will be highly visible if it is above the fish.

On the pike front, Jamie Lees from Edinburgh caught a 33lb fish on the pike fly.

Current average weight of trout is 2½lb but there are a fair few bigger on-grown specimens also.

TamWard (Cumnock) caught a 7lb 12oz fish on a candy fab and a DI5 in Gateside. Iain MacKenzie (Alexandria) captured an 8lb 4oz beauty also in Gateside on a DI5 and cat booby.

Iain was out with mate and angling coach David Bell and the pair of them weighed in 10 fish for 32lb 4oz.

In the Scottish Club Championships on Saturday, in very warm water conditions, 14 teams and one angler competed and in all 81 trout were caught, with 39 being released.

Club secretary Kenny Miller reports that fish were in the deeper water and sink lines were normal.

Gateside Bay (Cages) and off Inchmahome were the favourite places with DI3, DI5, DI5, DI7 (sweep) the favoured lines.

Best flies were candy cat, white cat and all black boobies. Diawl Bachs, buzzers and cormorants were also effective.

Top team on the night were Newton Mearns (Billy Dewar, Kenny Hunter and John Buchanan), with a catch of 24 trout for 50lb 5oz.

Second place, with seven trout for 15lb 4oz, went to Dows FFC and third to Menteith Ospreys B team with six trout for 15lb 1oz. These teams go to the semi-final on A ugust 30.

Top six rods qualifying for Champion of Champions were: John Buchanan (Newton Mearns) 13 trout, Chris Laird (Lochgilphead & District) five, Billy Dewar (Newton Mearns) six, Kenny Hunter ( Newton Mear ns) five, Abigail Montgomery (Dows FFC) five, Keith Renton (Coldstream & District) five.

Heaviest trout on the night was a rainbow of 6lb 9.2 caught by Chris Laird of Lochgilphead & District.

The fine weather has not been conducive to great f ishing on Lintrathen Loch.

While the better catches have been taken in the evening, there have been some anglers out during the day who have taken limit bags.

The best tactic during the day has been to go deep with black or green/black lures on DI3 or 5 lines, while anglers out in the evening have found the fish to be higher in the water and small dark flies or nymphs have done well.

Club results include Brechin A C eight boats, 15 fish for 30lb 12oz; Perth RA SC four boats, 26 for 49lb 12oz; Falkirk Municipal A C five boats, eight for 16lb 4oz; Glenrothes & Freuchie A C one boat, nine for 17lb 8oz and Monifieth A C six boats, seven for 17lb.

Individual boats include Moira and Stewart Ferrier six fish for 11lb 4oz, Tom Melville five for 10lb, D McPherson & J Wheatly nine for 20lb 8oz, E Stewart & L McPherson six for 14lb 8oz, Jim & Dave Moncur four for 8lb and lastly Stewart Ferrier and guest five for 10lb 12oz.

The hot sunny days have made the fishing at Monikie difficult.

The fish are tending to lie deeper so faster sinking lines with small lures and Coral Boobies and cormorants are working, as are dries including the F Fly and Black CDC suspender when the fish do eventually come up in the evenings.

Some larger fish are showing up in the returns including: Jim Wood with a 6lb 3oz cracker off the Island, Kenny Dickson and M Selvey both with 4lb 4oz fish, again off the Island.

The rod draw for July, which is sponsored by Angus Angling, was won by JimWatson of Kingsmuir, by Forfar.

It was another very hot week at Orchill and by now the fish have slowed right down and are mainly being caught around the island where they are getting shelter from the trees.

Featuring among last week’s best catches was Jim Prentice (Tullibody) with four fish for 10lb on a Black Lure; William Heuer (Stirling) one for 4lb on a Black Rabbit and Tony Hingley (Alloa) took four for 9lb on a Coral Dancer.

Mike Christie from Perth had two for 6lb on Buzzers, Veronica Lusher (Perth) used a Diawl Bach to catch two for 5lb, Mitch Maxwell (Falkirk) two for 5lb on a Black & Green Fritz and Les Maxwell (Falkirk) had a brace weighing 4lb on a Black & Green Fritz.

Jim Kelly (A irdrie) took three for 8lb 8oz on an Orange Blob and Steven Nicoll (Crook of Devon) had three for 8lb on a Coral Lure.

Tight lines!