The colours of the rainbow.

Before I went to Zakynthos I spent a day fly fishing trying to catch some funky trout. The funky trout in question being blue trout, a variant of rainbow trout, and tiger trout, a hybrid of our brown trout and the American brook trout. Basically I failed miserably, caught nothing and got a reminder how poorly I cast a fly. To try and remedy this I booked a couple of hours with Scottish fishing guide Callum Conner who runs Scotia Fishing. We have chatted before via text and email but Tuesday morning was the first time we had met in person. Off we went to a park so he could help me improve my basic fly casting. By the end of my two hour session Callum had certainly managed to do just that, had given me a lot of good advice and things to go away and work on to improve some more hopefully. Afterwards we also had a chat about fishing the River Ebro in Spain which is something Callum has done in the past and I am keen to do next year with my mate Martin to target perch, largemouth bass, wels catfish and zander on lures. Anyway, it was a very productive morning and keen to practice some more and hopefully catch some fish in the process off I went to a nearby trout fishery. My knowledge of flies is pretty poor too but Callum had also given me a few pointers regarding them and recommended using buzzers so I went with a deep red one. The pond I was fishing wasn't very deep and as I could see trout I was able to cast towards them and very slowly twitch the buzzer past them trying to get the fly at their depth as I did. After a while I managed to get a trout interested and seeing the white flash of its mouth as it took the fly I lifted the rod and hooked the fish. I knew it was one of the fish I was after so took my time playing it and it was soon in my net. 

My first ever blue trout. It's basically a rainbow trout with a genetic mutation which alters its pigmentation and has a dull blue back and a silver underside. They look a lighter shade of blue in the water.

I then hooked two more in fairly quick succession that managed to throw my barbless hook. After this positive start things were pretty slow however and none of the other anglers who arrived to fish the pond were having much luck either so I moved to another one nearby. A few anglers on this second pond were complaining that things were slow too so when I hooked and landed a second trout I felt I was doing quite well. This one turned out to be a standard rainbow trout. Another angler along from me then had a rainbow trout and a brown trout both on a dry fly. I stuck with my buzzer though and managed another two rainbow trout. 

Grey, gold, pink and silver. The natural colours of a rainbow. 

I could see the odd tiger trout in this pond too but couldn't get any of them to take. Oh well, I guess I shall have to try again. I think the next time I get my fly rod out though I shall head to Leith Links to practice what I learnt from Callum. I have to be honest also and say that I'm not overly keen on trout fisheries, I'd much rather be fly fishing on a river or loch but if I am to catch a tiger trout and the other variant of the rainbow, the golden trout I shall have to keep visiting them. Wild trout are so much nicer but before I get my waders on I'd like to improve my fly casting skills first. I'd also like to fly fish for grayling this winter so I better get practicing. Pike is another species I'd like to cast a fly at and obviously it can be used to target some saltwater species too. It's definitely an area I'm keen to explore more in the future and I think I'll be making use of Callum's excellent services again. If you too are interested in improving your fly casting then you should check out Scotia Fishing for fly casting lessons in Scotland.   

Tight lines, Scott.