Saturday 2nd May. After being given a recommendation
to visit a little known reservoir reputed for its brown trout and which is
rarely fished I took the opportunity to travel down to the Borders.
My friend's Tam and Scott and I arrived in Galashiels
early on Saturday morning and had a hearty breakfast in the local supermarket restaurant
after which we drove to St Boswells to pick up our permits for the day's
fishing.
However after enquiring about out permits the owner
of the outdoor shop informed us that he couldn’t help us as he didn’t deal with
the fishing on this particular water and directed us to a newsagent in a nearby
village.
However on arrival at the said shop they didn’t deal
with the fishing either. Nevertheless they knew people who did so therefore the
newsagent forwarded a phone call to tell a local farmer that we were on our way
over to get permission to fish.
With the directions to the farm in hand we set off
once again this time to get the permits.
We eventually arrived at the farm after travelling
on never ending twisting country roads.
We thought we were never going to get away from the
farmer as he didn’t half like to have blether but ultimately we got what we
desired and were off at last to the reservoir which we reached soon after.
It was bitterly cold with a brisk east wind blowing
across the reservoir, not idea fly fishing conditions to say the least; however
we had gone to a fair amount of trouble to eventually fish here so we soon
strung our rods and tied on our flies and were soon off casting into various
areas of the water.
Tam was first into a fish and as it turned out the
best trout of the day, which was between ¾lb and 1lb mark which foiled with a
Bibio. It was a lovely fish. However, Tam kept it for the pot. Personally I think
he should have returned such a beautiful creature.
I was next to hook up. I caught three nice trout
however they were not quite in the same size bracket as Tam’s. However it was
very pleasing indeed to catch a trio of trout especially when all were fooled
with my favourite and most successful pattern the Kate McLaren.
Scott took some considerable time to eventually get
his one and only trout which he caught with a mallard and claret and was pretty
much the same size as the trout which I caught.
Tam caught a second just before we packed up and
headed back home.
It was a lovely piece of water to fish set in a
lovely picturesque setting surrounded by fine rolling hills and farms.
Conditions were not the best and as a result we
never saw much fish activity on the surface but we agreed that this reservoir
has the potential to be superb when the weather is more favourable.
So with that in mind we agreed that we would like to
return in the not so distant future.
