Loch Report

Lad(y)s and Dads Charity Day

This was our 14th Charity Day (we missed one year due to Covid) and I suppose our luck had to run out at some point with regards to the weather, and it sort of happened on Sunday. However, all was not lost by any stretch of the imagination ….. read on!

Having started the day with delicious bacon rolls cooked by Mikey, a full complement of 24 rods took to the water in boats. As always it was the lad(y)s team versus the dads team fishing for the “L” of a length trophy and the all- important bragging rights.

Bill Ferguson caught on his first cast and son Karl Ferguson on his second cast so it looked like they were in for a battle and we were in for a good day. From the bank we watched a steady stream of fish being caught by just about all of the boats and we were delighted to see so many fish being landed given how difficult the conditions have been of late. We later learned that the size and quality of the fish was once again a major talking point of the day …. Delighted to say the least.

As always, each person was restricted to the 12 flies that were on their patches and this year it looked to be a very good selection based on the conditions.

A full three hours were fished in the morning and people then came in for the customary BBQ, masterfully cooked again this year by Rod Entwistle. The slap up meal was then followed by some delicious desert offerings supplied by Jaine McLean and Christine Walley. Other helpers on the day were Sue Irving, Glenys Dow, Gordon Boulding, Dave & Christine Walley and Anne Entwistle. Our sincere thanks go to all of them for their help and support and we genuinely could not manage without you.

The forecast for the afternoon did not look great with strong winds of up to 40mph and driving rain on offer. We therefore decided to end the competition at that point and move straight in to the raffle and auction. Once again we had lots of great prizes thanks to the generosity of all those people that donated soem of whom were there on the day and other that weren’t in attendance… a big thank you to you all. And a big thank you also to those people who very generously gave us cash donations in advance of the day or who bought raffle tickets before the day.

I have to say that those people who were present really entered in to the spirit of the day and dug extremely deeply in terms of the number of raffle tickets they purchased and the amount that they bid for the auction items. You were all incredible.

It would be remiss of me not to give a special mention to Pete Dann who once again topped the bidding for the special cake, baked and decorated by Glynis Straker (Yet another show-stopper from Glynis and very much admired by everyone that saw it). It was a fitting end to the auction and a forerunner to the announcement of the results and the amount that we had managed to raise for St. Abbs Lifeboat.

So here are the results for the morning’s fishing:

The winners this year were the: LAD(Y)S Team

Top Lad(y) s rod – Karl Ferguson with 9 fish

Top Dads rod – James Gardiner with 6 fish

(A total of 53 fish were caught during the 3 hour morning session)

Top performing fly was a pink booby tied by Darryl Keillor

The lad(y)s now trail the dads by just four wins so let’s hope that next year they can make the gap even narrower!

Clearly though, the main reason for the day is to try to raise as much money as we can for our chosen charity, St Abbs Independent Lifeboat and this year we were delighted to have four of the crew members on hand to acknowledge the money raised to that point. (There is always a trickle of money that comes in after the event and so the final amount is always a little bit more than on the day and we will arrange to visit the Lifeboat HQ at St Abbs in a couple of weeks to hand over the final amount).

So, on the day we were able to announce that we had managed to raise the staggering amount of £2340 which we are pretty sure will be nearer to £2500 by the time that we come to make the official presentation.

Needless to say that we are humbled by the generosity of all those of you who supported our day in whatever capacity that was. It remains the highlight of our year and we are delighted to be supporters of such a worthy cause as the St. Abbs Independent Lifeboat.

Thank you all so much.

Gareth & Carmel