Fishing – tight lines at three local fisheries

The cold weather had made the trout reluctant to feed in local rivers, but good sport has been reported in three local reservoirs.

At Glencorse, Bill Taylor believes that things are picking up and Davy Thomson from Edinburgh had a great day when he caught his bag limit and released another 14.

Morton Fishings near Mid Calder reported it was bonanza time for Rosyth Civil Service Angling Club.

They landed nearly 80 fish, 18 of which were returned, as the sun shone and the fish came out to play.

Secretary Don Mackenzie said: “We’ll be back.” And he’s already booked another visit in September.

At West Calder, Iona Allan tells me that the gates of Allandale Tarn open at 8am and her current hours of fishing are 9am to 9pm every night except Tuesday when they are closed.

Hatches have been abundant amongst various species, keeping the fish feeding high pretty much all day.

Both the bait pool and The Tarn continue to fish superbly with most fish hooked in the top three feet on either water.

On the Bait pool, green power bait has been a firm favourite, although she always recommends anglers bring live bait too. Both worms or maggots also catching.

On the fly, buzzers, shuttlecock’s, f/wings, spiders and good old hare’s lug shipman or damsels in all their variants are still the top listed catchers.

Some anglers favour traditional wet flies such as dunkelds or kates fished high and they are also catching regularly.

There have been no ‘hot spots’ as the fish have been feeding well and trout are being caught regularly all day around the water.

But, if anglers are looking for a sure thing, or at least as close as you can get in angling, the last hour at night, just as the sun drops, has been pretty much ‘daft o’clock’ fishing every night.

Staying in West Lothian, Bruce Hope, chairman of West Lothian Angling Association, said the water level is lower side of normal.

He added: “The river is steadily coming to life and, for me, olive dry flies are doing the business. Pheasant tail nymphs are working too.”

And on the Cramond Angling Club stretch of The Almond from Newbridge down to the River Forth it has been slow going too, but chairman Adam Cross is looking for improved sport as the weather warms up.

Finally, there have been some hatches of flies but not as many as last year according to Peter Reith of Peeblesshire Trout Fishing Association. He believes that once the weather warms up there should be good catches on the Tweed.

There were, he said, a good number of the large Tweedsmuir brown trout spawning so he forecasts some larger fish.