Bank Competition 2026

Hi All,

We held our annual members bank competition last weekend and had 11 entries in total.

A week before the competition you would have said that we were in for perfect fishing conditions but as the week went on the forecast altered dramatically …… almost to the extent that you wondered if it was going to be possible to go ahead with the competition. However, we persevered and with the wind coming from the SW at approx. 20 mph, we went ahead. The pegs were placed along the south shore and from Gull Rock up to the reed bed. There were six sessions of one hour each with anglers moving up two pegs on each change-over. Over the course of the day we had sun, wind, no wind, rain and hail stones …..enough said!

We stayed at Gull Rock and were pleased to see a fish being landed almost immediately by Willie Crombie and so we thought “great stuff, we’re off and running”. We then went back to the jetty and watched fish being landed by 3 other anglers in the corner. Here we go, I thought, a flying start indeed.

How wrong you can be sometimes though as the day proved to be tough for everyone from there on in. Subsequently the west side fished really hard and the pegs on the south end of the loch fished much harder as well.

Regardless of the tough conditions all 11 anglers fished hard and in the main managed to see the day through to its conclusion and with bacon rolls from us and sweet stuff provided by Jayne McLean at lunch time, it wasn’t all hard going!

34 fish landed for 11 rods.

The morning sessions certainly set the scene for the final results which you can see below and a couple of pics too:

1^st Place:          James Gardiner  –  11 points and most fish

2^nd Place:         Paul McLean       –  11 points  

3^rd Place:          Darrel Young       –     8 points

Our congratulations go to each of the 3 prize winners who each won vouchers for Fishers of Penicuik. And once again thanks to Mike, the owner of Fishers, for enhancing the prize fund.

Particular congratulations to James Gardiner who not only won the competition this year but also made it a hat-trick of consecutive wins. A special mention also to Paul McLean who gave James a very good run for his money this year, finishing equal on points but coming second on account of the number of fish landed. Paul also landed a stunning brownie which he estimated to be around the 5 – 6lb mark, which gave him some consolation. Next time Paul?

James also gets his name on the honours board once again. Well done James and a special thanks to all those that supported the event by entering.  

James attributed his win to being in the right place at the right time at the start of the day but his tactics of casting a long distance using a slow sink tip line with a team of two flies, pink lure and black cormorant, certainly played its part. A mixture of good luck and considerable talent is a combination which will always be hard to beat. He’s clearly the man to beat next year!!

Cormorants and lures have certainly been the go-to patterns at the start of this season and with the weather being as up and down as it has been the fish are not yet able to feed on the surface. If you’re looking for good news though, when I looked out this morning (Tuesday 14^th) over a very calm loch, the fish were finally rising everywhere which can only be good news as we head in to mid-April. I was delighted to see the first house martins of the year last week, which for us is slightly earlier than normal. The house martins usually come before the swallows and so it won’t be a surprise to see them soon. Very welcome visitors which usually herald the start of some better weather ahead.