Down Lochter way last week a dark slippery character emerged from one of our lochs on Saturday. Colin McDonald and Kevin Bruce from Aberdeen were out for a morning session and doing very well as Colin had caught 17 fish, one being a nice 6lb fish on cormorants and buzzers. Keith also did well with 14 fish, including a lovely 8lb specimen all taken on buzzers. Keith continued fishing on the Osprey loch, beside the pipe, when he felt a surging pull of whatever he had hooked heading for the nearest weed bed. After a tremendous battle and much encouragement from Colin, Keith succeeded in surfacing this beast from the deep where is was found to be a 3 ft. black eel in a less than happy mood having been disturbed from its murky lair. Boyhood memories are of eels wrapped around your line with slime everywhere but on this occasion this was not to be as the debarbed buzzer had caught it in the top lip and a simple flick of the forceps released it and it languidly returned to patrol the depths. Even though eels are becoming scarce, there are plenty of people who have caught them while bait fishing but not so many on a small buzzer - so well done Keith.
On a more conventional level things are picking up fishing wise especially on the Muckle Troot loch where the water has cleared and cooled and the fish now seem interested in feeding as Autumn approaches.
The Blobby Boys, Dougie and Billy from Aberdeen led the way with 24 fish between them on the 3 b’s – bachs, blobs and buzzers. Congratulations to Dougie who retired last week and can now fully concentrate his efforts on the association’s river beats – so all you salmon, grilse and sea trout beware!
Steve Prince used his favourite diawl bachs and buzzers to good effect and landed 11 fish followed by Pete Young on 10 fish on a mixture of lures and buzzers.
Paul Ingram from Newmachar used a Montana and nomad lure to bring 8 fish to the net. Other returns were Josh Williams with 7 on buzzers and cormorants, Greg Weir had 6 on damsel, Stuart Forsyth had 5 on blade tadpoles and Charlie McKenzie also had 5 on a range of black flies.
Lets hope that the cooler temperatures prevail to kick start a good autumn season: once things pick up I will give details of forthcoming Lochter fishing competitions – so watch this space.
SP 04/09/18
