Something prompted me to look back. I don’t know what made me do it, but as I reeled in on the only pool vaguely deep enough to harbour a Trout in the stark dry spring conditions, something stirred. A Trout rose in the impossibly thin water just below. The spot I had walked right past just a few minutes before, having written it off as a poor prospect.
I slid back a few yards into the short ryegrass pasture and moved very slowly downstream to a point opposite where the fish had risen to slake my curiosity as to where this fish was holding up. I shot a glance at the irrigation sprinkler whirring and clicking just back from the river. Then I cupped my hands either side of my sunglasses and commenced an intense stare while not daring to flinch.
I saw bedrock strewn with the odd mid-sized rock, pale in colour, covered by water smudged with the dust of a dry spring but otherwise clear as it gets. There were willow sticks hanging over the spot. The light was good. I could see the riverbed easily at that spot. 10 foot upstream there were some dark reflections and some shining water, but the area where the fish had risen, which was probably twice the size of your dining room table, was empty.
I kept up the stare. Where was this ghost? There had been no doubt about the rise, and there was almost no doubt that the river bed was devoid of fish. What was going on here? I kept up the stare, as one does in a state of puzzlement and inquisitiveness. Moments later a fish appeared swimming quite briskly downstream, almost straight at me, before turning to face upstream and commencing feeding. Its pectoral fins were active. Its mouth opened periodically and twice it came up to the surface for something. I stepped slowly back, since I felt too exposed in the short ryegrass pasture.
I watched the fish with excitement, which was broken momentarily when the irrigation sprinkler rained cold water onto my back and down my neck. I tried hard not to flinch, but my gaze had wandered. When I looked back a split second later, the fish was gone, but just as quickly there was a rise in the silver patch, then another in the dark patch. I crept forward so as to avoid another cold dousing of irrigation water, and watched and waited.
Soon enough the fish came downstream again and I watched it repeat the same pattern. Ah! A Trout in a patrolling circuit. Something we seldom see, but quintessential Trout behaviour nonetheless. Now that I had that code worked out, the mechanics of getting in a presentation needed attention. I was in the best casting position I could be in, without climbing into the river, and I suspected that sliding down the bank would mean I could no longer see the fish. That wasn’t going to work. If I was going to get this right I needed to know where it was in its circuit. I daren’t cast while it was swimming straight down towards me, as it would see me. So I resolved to wait until it turned and then moved a few feet upstream before making a cast. I watched another circuit in which it disappeared upstream and then reappeared as it had before, confirming the predictability of the circuit. I was ready for it on the next circuit. I had the dry fly out in the current and the little three weight cocked and ready. The fish turned and started working upstream, and with my heart in my throat I unleashed a cast. Straight into the willow sticks just behind the fish!
I waited until it had moved further and gently pried the fly out of the branches with a flick of the rod tip. I was in luck…the fly dropped onto the water, and I pulled it back into the ready position for the next delivery. On the next circuit I aimed wrong again, this time the fly landed behind the fish. Determining that I hadn’t spooked it, I got in a second cast, which landed the leader over its head and the fly in another willow stick, just an inch too far across. I breathed deeply, and resolved to slow down. To calm down.
The next circuit I just watched the fish again. And on the following one I threw a better cast. The fish saw the fly land, mooched over and started to rise to it before changing its mind and carrying on up to feed some more. The tension!
On the next circuit I repeated the earlier cast. This fish came up to the fly again., and this time it ate, and I struck. And the fly came back at me. I sunk to my knees, my head in my hand. But as I looked back up, and to my utter amazement, the fish was still feeding. I flipped the fly out again, and this time, probably because I was a little rattled (to say the least!), it landed off to the left. But blow me down the fish sidled over to look at it again! This time it came up and looked at it, but sunk back. As I mustered my breath for a great big sigh, it had a change of heart, turned quickly and ate the fly right there in full view. It took all my restraint to wait for it to turn, before setting the hook, and then I was in.
I was elated as I drew the fish over the mesh. It was bigger than the twelve inches which I had first put it at. It was maybe 15 or 16 inches, and silver with sprinkled pepper spots and not a hint of a golden belly. A true Loch Leven!
Once I had photographed it and slid the fish back, it wasn’t 30 seconds before a fish started rising again, on the same circuit. Could it be? At no point had I seen a second fish.
I clambered from the river bed, back into the pasture, with the vain notion of catching the same fish again, but a short while later the rises stopped, and then Noel drew up level with me and I related the unbelievable tale, before we went looking for a fish for him to stalk.
