I thought when I was getting my boat ready one day last week that I must have over slept by a couple of months and woke up in October missing the nice warm days of July. I think almost every day I’ve been out this month I‘ve had to wear my leggings and jacket, with a jumper underneath to keep me warm. It hasn’t stopped the fish though, as more fresh fish have been caught in the past week.

On this weeks list of prize winners are Duncan Ferguson, yet again with a lovely silvery grilse of about 6lbs, caught near to Ptarmigan. Davie Millar from Balloch was another happy chappie with another sparkling grilse, caught on his way up the loch to camp up past the caves. Sympathy must go to Harry Seaton who was serving the cocktails to his skipper for the day, young Davie King who had just returned from his 18-25 holiday in Spain, and was full of testicals, sorry, I mean testeron. They had been trolling up the loch passing the cruise boats at Tarbet when they hooked a fish. Action stations were immediately put in place, but after a short time the fish parted company. Not to be disappointed, Harry toasted the fish, which was really just a good excuse for a small alcoholic beverage, and they set out their rods once more. About 200yds further on, and not more than three minutes later another fish fancied one of their Toby’s and off it went. Again battle stations commenced and sadly after a short battle the fish again parted company. Now disappointed, Harry poured a larger beverage and said “to hell with it”, or word similar to that.

A special mention goes to young Daniel Steel, who was out with his granddad and hooked and played a beauty of 73/4lbs, caught off the Rossdhu Bank This was his first ever fish and a cracker it was. Whilst on the special mentions, I have to report that Gavin Gilchrist finally managed to get out for the first time this year on Monday 11th July. He sailed up the loch and was unlucky to lose one, but lucky enough to catch and land one of 6lbs. Not bad I hear you say, but that’s not the end of the story. With confidence high he went out a couple of days later and got two both about the 6lb mark. What about that, two outings, three fish caught and one lost, he’ll need to be warned about over fishing the system. Last week saw Alan Stewart out fly fishing. Whilst fishing around Darroch he hooked a Salmon but it had the better of him and decided he didn’t fancy being wrapped up in tin foil and got off.

On Monday 26th Alex Bowie fishing out from Tarbet caught a fresh run grilse of 7lbs at German jetty, prior to heading up to Loch Awe, which according to Alex is fishing poorly. The following day Stuart Butcher was out with some friends and at 09.30hrs landed a beauty of 7lbs from the Long Point.

I’m sure there are other stories of fish caught and lost, and I apologise to those anglers for not mentioning their catches, but I do not always get the information, or it gets to me too late to be mentioned.

Having stayed in the tent the past couple of weekends and suffered the weather, in fact the loch was rising so much I was in danger of being flooded out. I certainly wasn’t as bad as Kevin Gath, whose tent door led directly into the loch, a handy thing when needing some water for the kettle, not so handy when getting out unless you are wearing flippers. Anyway on Tuesday past, that day we can call our summer, I took down the tent and swept the floor, leaving the area as I found it.

Well the month of July is almost gone now and albeit the weather’s been poor, the fishing has been great, I haven’t heard the moans and groans about the lack of fish all summer, and that must be a good sign. For me now the metal work in my boat has been discarded for the fly rod and box of flies. So I’ll see you out there and if I’m on a drift please give me a wave and a wide berth, cause there’s nothing more infuriating than a motor running right across your drift. Screaming reels and all that jazz.

In the picture below is young Daniel Steel with his 73/4lb Grilse.