Weather boost for anglers, record at Bowden Springs

What a cracking day Mr Kent had at Harlaw Reservoir. The visitor had 17 to the net during his session and he was closely followed by member Douglas Skedd with 12.

Warmer weather meant increased insect activity in the reservoir above Balerno with buzzer, May and hawthorn fly, nymphs working well.

Yellow dancer has proved a popular choice and best parts of the water have been Ricky’s Point, The Narrows and the South Shore as well as The Dam Wall.

Elsewhere, Glencorse Reservoir boss Bill Taylor will start his afternoon/evening sessions on May 22 and anglers can book for eight, six and four hours. These sessions operate on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

There have been large hatches of buzzers at Millhall near Polmont and the best flies have been buzzer, pheasant tail nymph and diawl bach just under the surface. CDC and klinkhammer plus emergers have been working on top of the water when there was cloud cover. 

Other successful patterns are damsel and rabbit, blob, fab and egg.

K Hunter, B Sives and B Donald had nine fish but A Robinson returned 23 fish. B Fyfe had 13 with M Buchanon recording 15 fish on various lures I Wallace and J Reid returned 14 and 16 fish respectively and A Connell had 14 fish on nymphs but top rod was R Riley who returned 36 fish. He was fishing nymphs.

Finally, Gregor Crookston smashed the previous record for a fish from the five-care paid pond at Bowden Springs near Linlithgow. The previous best was 9.5lb, but he hooked into a brown trout of 15lb.

It was so big it would not go into the net comfortably and he received assistance from fishery manager Gordon Reid. Powerbait was the temptation for the fish and it arrived in a bag of four.

PICTURE: Harlaw Resrvoir on a sunny day. By Nigel Duncan