Apologies that we have not got a full report to do this time and thank you to Les Lockey for his fishing report which we copy & paste below. Next weekend is our annual Charity Day & so we will post a report on that in due course.

Fishing Report by Les Lockey.

31^st Aug – 6^th Sept 2024

The weather forecast for my early September fishing week was not promising, particularly for dry fly fishing, but Coldingham Loch often surprises those anglers who are prepared to give the dries a fair chance, as I found out once again.

Saturday and Sunday saw cloudless skies, bright sunshine and a cool south westerly wind which made casting from the jetty and along the south shore into Swing Gate Bay reasonably straightforward. Starting at the jetty, I saw large shoals of small perch fry which were intermittently disturbed by marauding trout, so ideal conditions to try out a prototype pin fry pattern tied with a polypropylene fibre wing and I’m happy to report that on just my second cast I had a solid take that resulted in a stunning brown trout coming to the net. Another four apparently solid hook ups followed, but annoyingly only one other brown was brought to the net with the others somehow managing to throw the hook. In Swing Gate Bay, occasional fish could be seen rising slowly not far from the bank which I targeted with a black flat daddy and took several good rainbows, with several more lost in play.

After heavy overnight rain and thunderstorms, Monday dawned misty and muggy. I made a leisurely start after lunch from the jetty and noticing some ginger coloured sedge shucks on the tyres around the jetty, I tied on an orange Cooper Bug and fished it static in the gentle ripple and once again this magic little fly produced one brown and a lovely rainbow as if from nowhere.

Tuesday was a sunny day with light winds, but importantly with some decent high cloud cover so an good day to get in a boat and fish on the drift. As I changed my leader at the car near the boats, I noticed numerous brown beetles crawling over the car bonnet, so I set up a floating line with a black flat daddy on the point and a small black foam beetle on the dropper and headed to the top of the North end to drift down and across the narrows and the results were nothing short of amazing. In just two and a half hours, I netted 20 fish, lost several more in play and also had numerous offers that didn’t connect. Fish came to both flies but interestingly, of the 20 fish caught, 17 were beautifully conditioned browns which made for a truly memorable few hours.

On Wednesday the sun shone brightly once again, but this time accompanied by a cool easterly wind that saw few rising fish. Undaunted I drifted back and forth across the narrows with an orange foam daddy on the point and a yellow owl CDC on the dropper and managed to land 5 browns and 1 rainbow with 3 others throwing the hook.

Thursday was a horrible day that saw a peculiar combination of thick mist, heavy rain and a very strong and cold Easterly wind creating clouds of white foam around the boats which put paid to my fishing for the day.

It was very misty again on Friday with visibility down to just a few yards, which made navigating the boat interesting to say the least. I was convinced that I was heading up the narrows towards the top of the North end when I suddenly found myself just yards from Lochside Cottage jetty! Lesson learned, I motored close to the bank and headed upwind to the top of the North end and dropped anchor. With no visible signs of rising fish, I opted to give the fish something they would hopefully see in the murk and set up a black flat daddy on the point and an orange foam daddy on the dropper and cast them out into the mist and settled back to wait. Almost immediately my rod buckled over as a strong fish took hold and after a spirited fight, I brought a lovely 4lb brown to the net with the flat daddy secured in the scissors. In the next hour the flat daddy / orange daddy combination produced another 10 fish to the net with 3 more lost. After lunch, the mist lifted slightly and the sun tried to break through but failed. However the slight rise in temperature saw numerous large daddies bumbling across the surface together with a sporadic hatch of sedges and olives. Despite this and loathe to change a winning combination, I continued with my two daddies approach but this time drifted in the gentle breeze and by 2.30 I had landed a total of 20 fish, lost 8 and had numerous offers that did not connect. Given the visual indications of hatching and windblown insects, it would have been logical to change at least one of my flies to a sedge or olive imitation, but in my experience, logic and trout seldom go hand in hand, and as if to prove my point, another angler fishing close by, spooned one of his fish and found it to be full of brown beetles!  So much for logic.

Thanks again to Les & we will be posting the ‘A fly to Tie & Try’ for October, also by Les in the next few days

with best wishes

Carmel & Gareth