Eliburn hour cures the Balmaha blues.

With the horrible weather of late finally breaking I headed west with Lillian to Loch Lomond today to try and catch my first ever ruffe. Driving there I noted that there was hardly any snow left on the peaks of the Ochil Hills, a good sign that spring is finally here! When we arrived at Loch Lomond it was a lovely day, the sun was shining and there was hardly any wind.

Blue skies.

Balmaha Pier on the eastern shore was the spot I decided to fish and I elected to fish maggots on the bottom using a swim feeder set up. Arriving at the waters edge it quickly became apparent that the water was quite coloured up from all the rain recently and the wind during the week had no doubt stirred it up too. I gave it a go anyway, hoping that the ruffe being a hardy and voracious little bugger would find my red maggots irresistible. After a while Lillian went for a walk along the shore and took a picture of me on the pier on her return.

Feeding the swim with maggots regularly and waiting for the tip of my feeder rod to move.

After about three hours though with not even a twitch on my rod tip I decided enough was enough and the murky water had got the better of me. We headed home and on the way we stopped at Eliburn Reservoir in Livingston for an hour or so. Switching to my float rod and fishing a waggler a rod length out I soon had a fish on, a lovely roach. 

Finally a fish! In nice condition too.

This was soon followed by a second roach and then a greedy little perch. All the perch I've caught from Eliburn have been very small. There must be some bigger ones in there somewhere. Must try with worms in the future to see if I can tempt one out.

Where are your big mates?

I hooked one more roach before we headed home but pulled the hook out of its mouth trying to lift it out instead of using my net. I would have liked to have carried on fishing but I had to get ready to go to work unfortunately. Oh well, whilst quite disappointed by the abject failure at Balmaha Pier I was glad not to end such a nice day fishless. I guess I'll have to wait for some settled weather before heading back to Loch Lomond to try for ruffe again. 

Tight lines, Scott.