“Cauld blew the bitter biting north” on Sunday at Lochter Fishery Oldmeldrum but it did not put off twenty eight hardy anglers who were there to compete in the Robbie Burns Pairs event. For much of the morning they had to thole in the words of the bard a “sleety dribble and cranreuch cauld” but in spite of the conditions which were further exacerbated by the cloudy condition of the water, fish were regularly coming to the net and that tends to make the weather seem not quite so bad. The traditional lunch of haggis , neeps and tatties was welcomed by all and as the day progressed so the weather improved and the event finished in sunshine.
When the scores were added up the winners using the SANA points scoring system were John Brown and Kevin Neri with 28 points closely followed by the real Mackays ,Ernie Snr and Ernie Jnr who pipped the pairing of Andy Barrowman and Brian Chalmers on countback.
The first fish of the day was caught by John Brown and the last by Mike Shewan and at the end of the day quite a few glasses were raised to the memory of our national bard.
During the week the fishing has been steady and with the water being slightly cloudy anglers using flies or lures which showed up in the water did best. The blobby boys ,Doug Mair and Billy Ferries had eighteen between them ,Chris Fraser had ten using a mix of lures and Russell Jenkins netted eight using a variety of lures. Robert Still used cormorants and buzzers and was well rewarded with eight to his name ,with his best at 4lbs.Bob Campbell and Jim Robb did okay using WSW`s and George Watt had half a dozen using a black lure.
At the time of writing the lochs are very high but in contrast with this time last year they are all ice free which is good news for anglers anxious to have a cast now that the days are stretching .
HH 27/01/14
