Boat bookings: Tel.01877 385 664

FISHERY REPORT

30th March 2004

Opening Day Report

The 2004 Menteith Season Opened on Saturday 27th March. A short welcome was given by Manager Quint Glen. Quint thanked all those involved for making the Lake such a successful fishing venue (past and present): the anglers, the club secretaries, the competition organisers, the press, the fisheries board and the staff.

The season was officially opened by Bette Haynes – the new owner of the Lake Hotel. Melody was provided by Port of Menteith Piper Donnie Cameron.

It was one of the mildest air starts to the season for many a year as evidenced by the hatch of buzzer and last years record opening day catch was surpassed – despite a small decrease in preseason stocking and the Loch being 4C colder (6C at 6ft.). Clarity was not at its best (2m on the secchi disk) but was similar to last year. Probably due to our first decent rainfall for some time occurring in the previous week and the input of the first real heat of the year.
In all 303 fish for 679lbs were weighed in – an average of around 9 fish per boat. The average weight of the fish was 2 ¼ lbs – a number of bigger fish in the 5-8lb weight range were also taken. As usual at this time of the year there were some magnificent overwintered specimen rainbows in the baskets but unfortunately no camera was present! Surprisingly few brown trout were taken, although this beautiful brown was taken for the pot by Kenny Millar of Glenmavis.

Saturday 27th March: 33 boats landed 303 fish for 679lbs. Heaviest bag was P.Auchterlonie and G.Whyte of Creiff with 15 fish for 43lbs. They were using a green and white lure and a wet cell 3 line on the road shore. Other Hot spots were Hotel Bay, Kates Brae Bay and Lochend. Other limit bags were taken by Morgan/Forbes/Fullerton, Tom Howe and G.Ferguson. A lot of the fish were taken in the margins.

Sunday 28th March: Port Glasgow AC (15 boats) 65 fish for 155lbs and Dalziel Steel (7 boats) 10 fish for 28lbs.

Monday 29th March: ICI Dumfries (6 boats) 20 fish for 48lbs

Best regards from Menteith