Afternoon,

I fished for the first time at menteith yesterday. It was a cold, blowy, rainy day and seemed fairly perfecto for catching a few rainbows or even a brownie at this place.

Loads of boats on the water and slightly less rural/natural than i expected.

After losing a fairly big brownie (now becoming my speciality) early in the morning, i changed lines, flies, retreive, casting, locations and anything else that i thought might help to catch.

Nothing but a few knocks

I would say that overall the avrage angler on the water yesterday caught about 1-2 each.

The person with me got into a mighty tasty blue trout of about 3lbs towards the end of the day and this kept our interest going a bit longer.

My question is............

"Menteith is heralded as the leading trout fishery in Scotland although i'm keen to understand if this is true in peoples opinions and is there a large number of fish taken per visit?"

So what are you saying here.....the Lake must be pish because most folk have struggled on the day you were out.....
The Lake is undoubtably one of the best managed and consistant put and take fisheries in the country.

Your post is typical of all that is wrong with the fly fishing scene today.....you pay your money so you expect a bag of fish......have a word mate.

No piehead, im saying before you get your wifes knickers into a twist that

"i had a hard day yesterday but is it usually good fishing?"

this will let me know based on others experience whether its usually very good.

Calm yourself next time crazy lips

So on the strength of having one bad day, you are begining to wonder if the Lake is all its cracked up to be.....or am I still picking up the wrong vibe here....?

Sounds an unusually bad day for Menteith, a few boats can have a bad day anywhere but 1 or 2 average for most boats very unusual.
Did you ask the fishery staff for advice on areas/tactics before you went out?

In my opinion the Lake is the best boat venue in Scotland, like anywhere it can have its good days and bad ..........there are days when you go there and hardly see a fish moving and other days its bouncing with fish.......depends on the conditions

I think if you go and get to know the place there are drifts and areas that normally hold fish..............personally this year its been nymphs and dries that have worked best.........in years gone by boobies and blobs have done the business for me.........I can think of nothing better than being there right now fishing a floating line and diawl Bachs ......or a couple of dries

My advice would be to give it another try, talk to Douglas or Quint before you go out and see where and whats been fishing.....

Maybe your disappointed with the place as you had heard how good it was and it did not produce the goods for you that particular day......but stick with it

A Menteith Fan

Gus

Therein lies your answer.
I've fished the Lake for more years than I care to remember , but not so often recently , and have always found that it just doesn't fish in what you'd call a decent brownie wind / wave.
No doubt others will disagree , but....................

Dont you just love the Glesgae banter

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[SIZE="4"]BRITISH BY BIRTH , SCOTTISH BY THE GRACE OF GOD..[/SIZE]

...... I deserved it Stevie,picked the guy up the wrong way and went off on one.I should be wearing one of the wifes jam rags as well......

I've fished Menteith a couple of times in Internationals and considering the hammer it takes the quality of fishing is outstanding. If anything, I would say that it is probably overstocked.

The Blue Rainbows are amazing; they seem to average about 3lb and fight like hell.

Graham