September is here already.
The heather has bloomed, the blaeberries are starting to turn on the branch and the bracken is starting to yellow.
Autumn is less than three weeks away, the greens of summer turn to golds, yellows and oranges in a final blast before winters grey sets in, and similarly our native brown trout are gearing up for breeding season.
Loch Horn on Thursday was very much a reminder of the imminent arrival of Autumn.
A cool wind blowing from the wind farm towards the dam end, but warm out of it.
I took the float tube out for the first time in weeks, every outing I've had on it this year has been an event, leaking tube, leaking waders, forgotten flippers... it really felt as if the gods of fishing were conspiring against me.
New bladders installed yesterday at the water edge. Only to find a mouse had made a handy 4 inch hole in the side of the tube. I had left a snickers bar in the pocket and the mouse had chewed through the tube to get to it. Hope you got diabetes you wee bugger.
Another shining example of why 2020 will be fondly forgotten!
Anyway, I digress. Back to the fishing.
I started on the northern shore, working up the edge about 100yds from the shore and casting in towards the weed beds.
Again, with autumn coming the weeds have turned to a vivid red, making them easy to see.
Picked up a 12 inch brownie on the first cast, and had a couple more near misses as I worked along.
When I got to the point where the tyre is, a very large fish came clean out of the water for the point fly (Horny Devil) but didn't connect. Not as big as the fish I missed last outing, but still a good 3lb + I would say.
Certainly big enough that I frantically fished over the same area for another twenty minutes, hastily firing back in the perfectly fine 1lbers I would normally be chuffed with, accompanied by a mutter of "you're not the fish I'm after, go tell him!!"
The wind picked up in the afternoon, pushing the fish down for a while, but as soon as it eased they came back on.
16 trout for the day, the largest (and last) being 16 inches nose to tail.
