If the question had been asked of the twenty six hardy anglers who contested the Rabbie Burns Pairs competition at Lochter Fishery Oldmeldrum on Sunday ,the answer would have decidedly been “Aye most certainly”.
With a fair bit of snow on the ground and squally flurries to add to the fun ,cauld hands were always going to be the order of the day but Kevin Neri got off to a warm start when just as the whistle sounded to start the competition he flicked his flies out to wet them and an obliging trout grabbed his point fly. Trout were catchable in spite of the conditions but anglers had to go down deep to find them. Black lures and minkies did well with bright blobs as attractors.
At lunchtime anglers enjoyed a fine hot ,traditional meal of haggis neeps and tatties with the haggis being properly addressed prior to consumption by Lochter general manager Howard Hughes.
Suitably fortified and in improving conditions the anglers had a good afternoon and when the scores were tallied up using the SANA points system. Two teams had an identical score and it was necessary to go to countback to get the winners. The winning pair was John Brown and Kevin Neri who just edged out Richard McHattie and Kenny Riddell with Tommy Graham and Steve Corsar close up in third.A big well done to all the anglers who competed and managed to thole “the winters sleety dribble and cranreuch cauld”.
Earlier in the week when conditions were better some excellent bags were achieved .Ron Ewan had nineteen on cormorants, L Davidson fourteen on nomads, L Mess also fourteen using his zuddler beetle , Alan Logan a dozen attracted to his tried and tested nymph patterns and Peter Young eight eight using black lures.
At the time of writing the lochs are ice free and the snow has gone. The forecast is mixed but there are plenty of fish out there for hardy anglers.
HH 4/02/13
