Tough fishing and ruffe fishing.

Earlier this week I visited Parkview Coarse Fishery for yet another attempt at catching my first Scottish barbel. The fishing was incredibly tough and after over eight hours of staring at the tip of my float all I was rewarded with were six tiny perch and a solitary roach. A very frustrating day’s fishing. I think I’ll take a break from fishing for barbel until the autumn.

Staring at a float can be both relaxing or infuriating. I guess which depends on how many times it moves!

The next day, I headed to Balmaha on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, a place I haven’t visited for many years. After parking the car and unloading my gear, I made my way along to the old pier, where I spent what remained of the morning and the best part of the afternoon feeder fishing. With my 2023 species hunt in mind, I was hoping to catch ruffe or maybe even powan. To begin with, all I caught were roach, but they were lovely fish, and it was a pleasure to briefly admire each one before slipping them back and watching them swim off.

Out in front of the old pier lies Inchcailloch, the Isle of the old woman.

All the roach I caught were in wonderful condition.

After a short break to eat my lunch, things slowed down a bit, but every now and then the tip of my rod would pull round and I’d lift into another roach or a perch. Eventually I hooked something very small and was over the moon when a ruffe came up to the surface.

If you ask me these little unwanted invaders are quite adorable, cheeky little fish.

The area behind me was very busy with tourists waiting for the ferry to arrive. Thankfully, almost all the ferries operating on the loch now use this new pontoon to the right of the old pier.

I carried on fishing until about 16:30 by which point I had almost run out of maggots. I'd caught a few more roach, but sadly no powan had been tempted by my colourful choice of presentation!

Red, white and blue. How very British!

With only a few dozen maggots left I headed back around to the car park and dropped off most of my tackle. I then grabbed my tanago gear and headed down to the boatyard where I spent an hour or so trying to locate nine spined stickleback, a species that is supposed to be found in Loch Lomond. There were certainly lots of small fish around but upon catching a few I discovered they were perch, roach and ruffe! After catching about half a dozen small ruffe I also caught a few larger specimens.

The smallest ruffe ever caught on hook and line? Possibly!

This one put a little bend in my tanago rod!

The micro fishing was good fun, and on a positive note I've now got a much more reliable spot to catch ruffe for future species hunts! The downside though, was that there was no sign of any stickleback at all, so I may have to try different venues for those. Before leaving, I visited the Tom Weir statue near the boatyard. I’m not sure if it was there the last time I visited. I remember watching “Weir’s Way” when I was young, the TV series where he explored Scotland, speaking to locals wherever he went. 

A very good likeness of Tom, wearing his trademark woolly bobble hat. 

So, over the two days I had managed to add one species to my 2023 species hunt tally taking it to one hundred and seventy. I think for my next session I’ll head down to Dumfries and Galloway to have another attempt at catching my first Scottish nine spined stickleback.

Tight lines, Scott.