They're great.

It's been a while since I put a post up. It's not that I've not been out fishing, I just hadn't done anything that interesting for a while or really caught anything of note. At the start of the summer I spent a fair bit of time having a go at fly fishing for trout at various fisheries. Fishing lures was the most successful approach with one pattern in particular proving to be very effective.

The Ally McCoist lure. They're great!

It was almost entirely rainbow trout and blue trout that fell for Ally McCoist but it also produced my first tiger trout. They're a hybrid of brown trout and brook trout and are a pretty cool looking fish with their tiger like markings.

My first tiger trout.

Despite enjoying a reasonable amount of success I have to be honest and say that I'm not a massive fan of this style of fishing. I still need to catch a golden trout and a brook trout though so I'll no doubt be tying on an Ally McCoist and doing a roly poly retrieve again at some point.

Tight lines, Scott.

The colours of the rainbow.

Before I went to Zakynthos I spent a day fly fishing trying to catch some funky trout. The funky trout in question being blue trout, a variant of rainbow trout, and tiger trout, a hybrid of our brown trout and the American brook trout. Basically I failed miserably, caught nothing and got a reminder how poorly I cast a fly. To try and remedy this I booked a couple of hours with Scottish fishing guide Callum Conner who runs Scotia Fishing. We have chatted before via text and email but Tuesday morning was the first time we had met in person. Off we went to a park so he could help me improve my basic fly casting. By the end of my two hour session Callum had certainly managed to do just that, had given me a lot of good advice and things to go away and work on to improve some more hopefully. Afterwards we also had a chat about fishing the River Ebro in Spain which is something Callum has done in the past and I am keen to do next year with my mate Martin to target perch, largemouth bass, wels catfish and zander on lures. Anyway, it was a very productive morning and keen to practice some more and hopefully catch some fish in the process off I went to a nearby trout fishery. My knowledge of flies is pretty poor too but Callum had also given me a few pointers regarding them and recommended using buzzers so I went with a deep red one. The pond I was fishing wasn't very deep and as I could see trout I was able to cast towards them and very slowly twitch the buzzer past them trying to get the fly at their depth as I did. After a while I managed to get a trout interested and seeing the white flash of its mouth as it took the fly I lifted the rod and hooked the fish. I knew it was one of the fish I was after so took my time playing it and it was soon in my net. 

My first ever blue trout. It's basically a rainbow trout with a genetic mutation which alters its pigmentation and has a dull blue back and a silver underside. They look a lighter shade of blue in the water.

I then hooked two more in fairly quick succession that managed to throw my barbless hook. After this positive start things were pretty slow however and none of the other anglers who arrived to fish the pond were having much luck either so I moved to another one nearby. A few anglers on this second pond were complaining that things were slow too so when I hooked and landed a second trout I felt I was doing quite well. This one turned out to be a standard rainbow trout. Another angler along from me then had a rainbow trout and a brown trout both on a dry fly. I stuck with my buzzer though and managed another two rainbow trout. 

Grey, gold, pink and silver. The natural colours of a rainbow. 

I could see the odd tiger trout in this pond too but couldn't get any of them to take. Oh well, I guess I shall have to try again. I think the next time I get my fly rod out though I shall head to Leith Links to practice what I learnt from Callum. I have to be honest also and say that I'm not overly keen on trout fisheries, I'd much rather be fly fishing on a river or loch but if I am to catch a tiger trout and the other variant of the rainbow, the golden trout I shall have to keep visiting them. Wild trout are so much nicer but before I get my waders on I'd like to improve my fly casting skills first. I'd also like to fly fish for grayling this winter so I better get practicing. Pike is another species I'd like to cast a fly at and obviously it can be used to target some saltwater species too. It's definitely an area I'm keen to explore more in the future and I think I'll be making use of Callum's excellent services again. If you too are interested in improving your fly casting then you should check out Scotia Fishing for fly casting lessons in Scotland.   

Tight lines, Scott.

The sun has got his hat on.

I should have had mine on too. I headed out yesterday for a full day of coarse fishing to hopefully catch plenty of fish and also the sun which had decided to come out of hiding. First I headed to Pumpherston Pond to have a go there for the first time. I popped into Livingston Angling on the way there and picked up some maggots.

Pumpherston Pond. It used to be a great little venue I'm told.

The water was crystal clear which meant I could see all of the rubbish on the bottom and there was a considerable amount unfortunately. It's such a shame that idiots dump litter and spoil such a nice pond. I decided to take an ultra light rod instead of my usual float rod to have a bit of fun playing the fish I caught. I set up and started fishing a single red maggot under a Puddle Chucker float. Another angler arrived and told me that a few pike had been caught there last week which was encouraging. He started fishing just along from me using a small Rapala. As if to prove what he had told me after a few casts he hooked a small jack, but lost it after a short scrap. He worked his way around the pond and disappeared out of sight. I meanwhile was having no luck at all and after about an hour or so I decided to head off to Eliburn Reservoir and began packing up. When I lifted my net out of the water it had a leech in it. I've never seen one before and it was quite a bizarre creature contorting its body as it wriggled in my hand and then taking on a ribbon like shape and swimming off when I threw it back into the pond.

I bet the perch and pike would snaffle this given the chance.

A short drive later I arrived at Eliburn and set up on a peg in the sheltered bay on the western side of the venue. Plumbing the depth and fishing on the deck it didn't take long before a I was getting a bite every other cast and had soon caught a load of perch, roach and a solitary ide which thrashed out of my hand just as I was about to take a photo of it.

One of twelve small spiky perch I caught.

A nice plump roach. Again, one of twelve.

It was at this point I noticed my arms were quite red and wondered what my head was like. With a pleasant breeze blowing all afternoon cooling my skin and the sun beating down for a change and reflecting back up from the water I thought it best to go and get some sun cream. Before I did though I decided to have a few more casts and I'm glad I did because the next fish I caught was a lovely tench that fought rather well, as tench do, with those big powerful fins.

Great fun on my ultra light gear.

Happy with the short session and looking forward to hopefully catching a few more rudd, practicing my fly casting and perhaps even catching a rainbow trout or two on the fly at Markle in the evening I headed back to the car, where upon seeing my reflection in the windows my fears were confirmed. My head was quite red indeed. I stopped off at a supermarket and bought some sun cream, although to be honest the horse had well and truly bolted from its "burnt bald head" stable.

I drove east and was soon at Markle. The wind had dropped right off, the sun was still shining and after another generous application of the factor 30 to try and prevent any further damage I headed over to the little bay to float fish for rudd. They were much more actively feeding up in the water, probably due to the sun warming it up a few degrees. I caught seventeen in a fairly short amount of time.

Rudd are lovely looking fish.

The two tufted ducks swam over and I thought they were going to start diving down and gobbling my maggots but they didn't. As I was watching them out of the corner of my eye I saw my float go under and when I struck the fish took off to my right away from the bushes. I knew it was a rainbow trout straight away and it was soon charging off stripping line against my loosely set drag. After a bit of scrap on my ultra light rod which was great fun I eventually drew the fish over my net but not before it coughed up a large quantity of my red maggots that it had obviously been happily scoffing before taking the one with the hook in it. I must say I'm not a great fan of rainbow trout, perhaps my least favourite fish in fact, their bloated appearance, which is obviously not natural, is not very nice in my opinion although apart from that this one was in reasonable condition.

Rainbow trout remind me a bit of Mr Blobby. Charging about smashing into things.

Given a minute or two to recover in the net it swam away strongly to gorge itself in readiness to inevitably fight another day. I continued float fishing and caught another three rudd, the last one was a bit larger than the rest I had caught and was in lovely condition.

Possibly the nicest rudd I've ever caught. I wasn't the only thing the sun gave a nice glow to.

Having caught twenty rudd I decided to pack up the float gear and go and practice my fly casting. To cut a long story short I really could do with some lessons. I did get one bite on a bright yellow dancer but didn't strike quick enough. It was some consolation that I only saw one other angler catch a solitary fish so maybe the bright conditions stacked the odds against me. That's my excuse anyway. I would really like to fly fish for pike in the future and would also like to try it for a few saltwater species too so I really need to get practicing. Anyway I packed up at dusk and headed home to rub moisturiser on my aching scalp.

A fairly close match to my two tone appearance.

I shouldn't complain though, we're long overdue some nice weather! I really must get a hat however. Perhaps I could get a nice IMA beanie from somewhere like the one my mate Ross wears?

Tight lines, Scott.

Fly casting practice.

Late last week I headed to a small burn in East Lothian with my mate Jake for a short session of upstream lure fishing for the resident trout. I also took along my brook rod as I thought I may get the opportunity to do a spot of fly fishing, or should I say practice my casting. We parked the car, climbed down the bank and entered the burn. We began working our way up the river and Jake having fished it the day before very kindly allowed me to fish most of the pools and runs, offering advice as we went. With little sign of any trout though, me constantly getting my jighead caught in the rocks and then spooking the fish as I moved upstream to free it, I was glad when we then approached a nice weir pool.

After sneaking up to it, seeing plenty of small fish rising and having a few casts towards them with the lures but with no reward, I decided it was time to try my fly rod. I've not been fly fishing for long at all and my casting isn't very good yet. Trying to keep low so as not to spook the fish I kept catching my fly on the vegetation behind me. Jake offered some advice and after a while I finally managed to get a fish to show some interest, slashing at the nymph under the surface. Casting practice continued with Jake removing the fly from the long grass behind me once or twice before I finally got it where the fish were. I then worked on stripping line at the right speed to keep the nymph moving through the current and must have cracked it when a small trout took my fly and was hooked. I was very pleased and was so grateful to Jake for his great tuition!

My second small fish on a weighted nymph in a week.

Jake then had a go with my brook rod and it didn't take him long at all to get himself a small trout. A little escapee rainbow trout from the fish farm further down stream. My turn again and after some more hit and miss casting I hooked a second small trout. Quickly retrieved and landed, it was another small rainbow trout. I was over the moon and found the whole thing quite hilarious as I've never seen rainbow trout so small before.

My 9th freshwater species on lures of 2012.

We carried on for a while longer before heading back down stream. Jake fished as he went but had no luck so we headed home. A fun couple of hours and I'm looking forward to future fly fishing practice and hopefully hooking a bigger trout on my brook rod soon.

Tight lines, Scott.

My first roach on the fly.

I popped up the canal on Sunday with my brook rod to pester the shoals of roach that are resident there. I've had a few attempts at this now and whilst the roach normally show some interest, getting positive bites is another matter entirely. I'm a total fly fishing novice and truth be told the short sessions I've had are more casting practice than serious fishing. Today however I was determined to catch something!

I headed to a large basin near the end if the canal. Fishing some small headed nymph patterns I tried a few different strip speeds and depths and as the water was nice and clear I could see the fly and the fish but it seemed it was to be another frustrating session with plenty of interest but no bites. I persisted for over an hour before I finally managed to get a bite and luckily it was an aggressive one that resulted in my first roach on the fly quickly being landed.

A very small roach but I didn't care!

I'm not sure what I did that induced the fish to bite but I was unable to replicate the feat over the following hour. Whilst fishing away I did however spot a small pike suspended in the margins and it was interesting to watch small meal size roach swimming by it in close proximity completely oblivious to the potential danger. I guess like sharks they are quite a selective predator, preferring to prey on the weak and vulnerable and would rather conserve their energy for a more opportunistic and easy to catch snack than expend energy chasing healthy fish. Anyway, I became mesmerised by this and as the pike watching had become way more engrossing than my fruitless attempts at catching more roach I decided to head home quite pleased that I had christened the rod even if the fish I'd caught had barely put a bend in it.

I guess I'll have to do a bit more research and practice more with my fly rod before I'm filling a keep net with roach!

Tight lines, Scott.