Spring started yesterday at Menteith with the 58th Opening Day at the Lake. There is a tradition of asking local Ladies and or VIPs to Open the Lake and this year we invited our Ukrainian refugees who hail from Bakhmut. A city name we are unfortunately familiar with for the wrong reasons. To bolster their spirits we thought it would be nice to acknowledge their VIP status in our community. So many many thanks to Mother and Daughter Olena and Darya Zakharchenko for doing us the honour of getting the season underway at the Lake. As is their tradition they imparted good luck to the anglers by wishing them “No tail, no scales”. Sounds to me a bit like telling actors to break a leg but Darya tells me it is to molify the water spirits by telling them that the fishermens intentions are good and no fish will be harmed:).
The weather was pretty kind – just a bit wetter than originally forecast and reports came back that there was plenty of fish feeding activity but they were focused on the prolific buzzer hatch. There were a lot of big catches and most folk reported that they were catching overwintered fish – although some did find some recently stocked fish. Top boat reported 42 fish netted but the average catch for anglers that stayed out for the full 8 hrs might have been around 10 (please mark in your catches folks). Many anglers were in early to enjoy the company and the array of homemade soups (think Connor got the soup prize – but they all went down well) and hot pies.
We are extending the qualifying period for the Jimmy Nairn Memorial Bowl Best Photo. The winner gets a hand turned bowl made by his son inlaw (Chris Carroll) from local wood. Some of the photos shown below are contenders…..
