Carron Valley – SANACC Semi-final – 17th June 2009
I think the weather forecast was for a South wind in the morning swinging to the West later and “Showers”. They got the wind o.k. but their interpretation of showers and mine would certainly differ!!!!! As we headed up the loch, my boat partner, Graham Connelly suggested that his “Skins” had had the worst that Loch Leven could throw at them and they had never let him down – he obviously hadn’t tested them against a Carron “deluge”. At the end of the competition his bum was just as wet as mine and he looked absolutely frozen!
Anyway I have to thank Graham for his efforts the previous day (he had a practice day which I could not unfortunately) as he had found fish just below Gull Island and had also found a fly that worked, both in the Cormorant version and in the Booby version which he very kindly tied up and presented to me in the car park that morning.
We both fished slightly different set ups, to start with, on DI3’s and different flies before I changed to a “washing line” approach, using Graham’s flies of course! Not surprising, he turned a couple of fish and had a nice Rainbow in the boat before I managed a small brown which I returned. During the course of the morning I managed 5 Rainbows (+ broken twice!) and Graham had 3 Rainbows. In the afternoon Graham had another Rainbow and I never touched another fish!
I must admit that I was very glad to hit the bank and get changed – wet up to the elbows and a wet, sorry, “wringing wet bum”, makes me feel cold just thinking about it! By the way, by that time it had stopped raining!
It was an unusual weigh-in as every fish was weighed and any over 2lbs were “Capped” at 2lbs with any under the 2lbs marked weighed and the “Capped” weight added (Hope I explained that clearly?).
Anyway my 5 fish gave a combined weight of 9lbs 9oz which gave me 7th place and a place in the national final. In case anyone is interested the cut-off weight was 9lbs 8.5oz, so I made it by the skin of my teeth!!
Unfortunately, my boat partner Graham didn’t make it with 4 fish which is sad because he had done all the hard work the previous day !
I think the weather forecast was for a South wind in the morning swinging to the West later and “Showers”. They got the wind o.k. but their interpretation of showers and mine would certainly differ!!!!! As we headed up the loch, my boat partner, Graham Connelly suggested that his “Skins” had had the worst that Loch Leven could throw at them and they had never let him down – he obviously hadn’t tested them against a Carron “deluge”. At the end of the competition his bum was just as wet as mine and he looked absolutely frozen!
Anyway I have to thank Graham for his efforts the previous day (he had a practice day which I could not unfortunately) as he had found fish just below Gull Island and had also found a fly that worked, both in the Cormorant version and in the Booby version which he very kindly tied up and presented to me in the car park that morning.
We both fished slightly different set ups, to start with, on DI3’s and different flies before I changed to a “washing line” approach, using Graham’s flies of course! Not surprising, he turned a couple of fish and had a nice Rainbow in the boat before I managed a small brown which I returned. During the course of the morning I managed 5 Rainbows (+ broken twice!) and Graham had 3 Rainbows. In the afternoon Graham had another Rainbow and I never touched another fish!
I must admit that I was very glad to hit the bank and get changed – wet up to the elbows and a wet, sorry, “wringing wet bum”, makes me feel cold just thinking about it! By the way, by that time it had stopped raining!
It was an unusual weigh-in as every fish was weighed and any over 2lbs were “Capped” at 2lbs with any under the 2lbs marked weighed and the “Capped” weight added (Hope I explained that clearly?).
Anyway my 5 fish gave a combined weight of 9lbs 9oz which gave me 7th place and a place in the national final. In case anyone is interested the cut-off weight was 9lbs 8.5oz, so I made it by the skin of my teeth!!
Unfortunately, my boat partner Graham didn’t make it with 4 fish which is sad because he had done all the hard work the previous day !
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