Hi,
On Saturday, it was a cold but relatively dry morning and definately a chance to get some of the rust worked off from during the ongoing winter months. Two of us toyed with the idea of venturing out to the more commonly known fisheries in the Central belt such as Swanswater, Burnhouse and Wellsfield.
Having visited some good places thoughout the season including Harelaw, Middleton and Tweedale as well as my more usual Stirling area haunts, we decided to venture slightly further North towards Orchil in Braco (Gleneagles exit A9). About 30mins North of Stirling.
I have been to Orchil twice before. The first time to record a blankety blank and the second to discuss fly patterns that were working, best pegs to fish and when to just stand and wait only to be told at the end of the conversation that "you cant fish today anyway as theres a competition on".
This time as we drove into the gravel carpark of the old estate in picturesque surroundings, we saw the small water with a gentle ripple across the surface lying fairly quite and empty. There were 3 people on the bank and 2 in the boat.
A father and son duo appeared with limit bags to tell us how well it was fishing and what tactics they had used to realise a successful morning. Lures!!! aaaaaaargh. Not my favourite but thats just me.
After being greeted by the nice woman who runs/owns the fishery we ventured down onto the water and stood facing west into the light breeze near the burn entrance at the far end of the loch.
The guy between us was using a green fritz, the small youth in the burn mouth was using a yellow dancer as were the guys in the boat. Intermediate lines were the order of the day as the fish were very larely coming above that level.
Using 3 small black nymphs on a dead slow intermediate retrieve with a 12ft leader, i started to get very faitn tuggs and pulls at the flies. Was it a fish that bit there? hard to tell. I would expect them to be pulling hard at their rare taste of food in these conditions but no, they were nibbling.
Again, the line felt as though something was on it although i wasnt sure. I lifted the rod and alas.....an average size fish. A few minutes later, I lost it. My companion shouted as he lifted into a nice fish before losing that as well.
What was happening here?
Within a few moniutes of losing my first fish, i had a bigger one on of around 4lb which splashed and ran and dived and gave a damn good fight until.....i heard a bang/ping and my Greys Gtec 10ft number 7 snapped in half!!!!! The fish wrapped around the jetty leg and i tried to hand ball it out. It got away as well!!!!!!
Within 20mins and a nice rasberry tea boiled in the Swedish Military thingymijigy, i was back out and into 2 1lb rainbows on the black nymph. I heard a noise behind me and he had a 4lb+ bow on with a decent fight ensuing. His fish had half a Gtec rod sticking out its mouth!! well it couldve been the same one.
I bagged up so i had to move to the far side of the water to the designated catch n release pegs. I sat looking around feeling that it was a bit of a waste at this side as there were so many features, so much activity and so much more chance of catching where I was before.
Shortly afterwards, the rain came in, a nice rainbow formed over the tree line at the end of the loch and i suddenly realised what a lovely and remote fishery i was on!! Unfortunately the rain became very heavy, the fish went down and the fishing dried up.
Overall my summary of Orchil fishery is this.............
Its a nice little fishery, set in lovely terrain, run by a nice woman, 14quid for 4hrs, plenty of fish taking more than your usual lures and well worth a visit any day of the week.
Highly recommended. Take your own pieces and flask though!
Chris
Orchil Trout Fishery
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