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June Monthly Report 2014

The boy's from Fife had a superb week

 Boardhouse saw a lot of attention during the month. The fish were generally pretty high up in the water during the day, and slightly deeper in the evenings. A combination of floating and intermediate lines with Hogs and Dabblers, and medium sinkers with mini lures could be relied upon for sport. Caenis started early this year, with hatches at various times throughout the day when the wind was down and sometimes even in a reasonable breeze.  Some of the better  Boardhouse baskets included 14 for 10 lb for Ken Kennedy, 11 for 8 lb 14 oz for Brian Foreman, 12 for 8 lb 5 oz for Malcolm Russell and 10 for 7 lb 11 oz for Norman Irvine. Visiting angler, Charles Hepburn landed a fine 2 lb specimen and Brian Foreman lost a fish in the 3 lb range. Regular visitor, Matt Donaldson and local ace, Stewart Wood boated around 25 fish for their day on Boardhouse, with several fish in the 1 lb to 2 lb range. Fly patterns included Hedgehogs in various hues, Suspender Buzzers, Silver Dabbler, Hulks, Erlend’s Cat and White Cat.

Harray fished well, especially towards the end of the month when double figure baskets were commonplace. Open water drifts produced to sinking lines but the skerries and drop offs were also productive. Norman Irvine and Shetland musician Ally Bain enjoyed a superb week on the big loch with up to 40 fish daily, fishing mainly “top of the water”.  Stewart Wood and Matt Donaldson boated took around 30 fish for their day on the loch with both sunk line tactics and Hedgehogs working well. Some of the better competition baskets included 12 for 9 lb 10 oz for Erlend Hutchison; 14 for 10 lb for James Bews, 11 for 8 lb for Ken Kennedy  and 13 for 9 lb 13 oz for OTFA President, Brian Thomas. Anglers can go for a whole season on Harray without hooking a fish over two pounds so Leslie Miller’s fine 2 lb 10 oz specimen was noteworthy.   

Out on Sanday, some cracking fish were taken. Shetland big fish expert, David Pottinger took fish of 5 lb 9 oz, 4 lb 7 oz, 4 lb 10 oz and 4 lb from North Loch, and Brian Watt had 3 fish in the 4 lb to 6 lb range from Bea Loch. Brian told me that there were good numbers of fish in the 12 oz to 1.5 lb range in Bea, and then nothing much until 4 lb plus which suggests a year or two of poor survival rate of the stocked fingerlings. Over on Westray, Kevin Rorie took a cracking 6 lb 2 oz specimen from Burness Loch.  Back on the Mainland, Colin Mackintosh took a nice 2 lb 8 oz fish from St Mary’s Loch in Holm and Matt Donaldson’s Olive Hedgehog accounted for a fine 2 lb 9 oz yellow belly off Clumly. 

David Barclay, Chairman of the |Wester Ross Fisheries Trust, shared a day with Alan
Shearer on Swannay in almost ideal conditions  , and fishing mainly floaters, they 
boated  24 plump fish for the session. During the last week of June, Hugh Thomson
and  Ed Green enjoyed six days on the Orkney Lochs, fishing all the main waters
except Boardhouse.  Despite their top of the water tactics being hindered by a dour
North East wind for most of the week, they had good sport, especially on Harray,  and
shared 85 trout for their stay, all safely returned excepting a brace for their Orkney
landlady !

MAR

Hi Malcolm, my name is Christoph Boeing and I live in Belgium. I thought the following may be of interest for you for catch statistics so I decided to sent this email. 

From 26th April to 3rd May my friend Dimitri and I were in Orkney for our annual fishing trip. We are regular visitors for fishing the Orkney Lochs, this year was the 7th trip for me. The fishing was quite difficult this year. Harray was still turbid with brown algae and a 1 1/2 pounder was the best we could manage. We then decided to concentrate more on the smaller lochs and Thursday evening my friend was into a good fish on Skaill. Unfortunately he lost it when it was close to the net. Next day (our last day) we went back to Skaill and after 2 hours I got a good fish of around 3 pounds. The fish was safely returned to the water. Only 1/2 hour later I was into another fish. This one I measured at 61 cm (24 inch). I would estimate the weight at around 5 pounds (unfortunately I have not much experience with browns of this size). Dimitri hooked another fish that afternoon but lost it. I heard of other fish taken from Skaill during that week, The loch seemed to fish very well.

Other highlights of our week were a day on Harray with Sandy Macconachie and a fish from Clumly. 

I hope this was interesting for you. I have attached some pictures. I would like to thank you and all members of OTFA for preserving and maintaining these wonderful lochs. I really look forward to my next visit. Tight lines and best wishes from Belgium, Christoph & Dimitri