The nights are ‘fair drawing in’ as they say and proper cold days are the norm, yet the fishing has been great.

When you think about it, the rainbow trout’s natural habitat is the waters of North America -  in some cases glacial rivers – you get the picture that they probably laugh at our winters.

The reason why fish are down deep, I reckon, is probably due to the food in the water being down there.

It’s just my theory, and perhaps I just use it to convince myself that dealing with our conditions is the right thing to do and I can tell my wife and friends who think I’m daft that it’s perfectly normal behavior.

Anyway, that all aside, I spent a great day at the fishery yesterday and so did our patrons.

Charles McGlinchey here had a personal best from the bait pond using wasp grub, the fish weighed in at 7lb.

Another cracker from the bait pond went to John Cree, again a personal best, of 5lb and it was his last cast!

Sneaky-beaky tactics paid off for John

Interestingly he used a seldom used tactic of a worm and hook i.e. no weight.

I’ve used this method in rivers before and it can be deadly.

The bait moves so naturally that it can take the most wary of fish.

 Well done mate.

There’s one other nice wee story about the bait pond from yesterday but I’ll save it to last.

Iain did well - even better than his Dad! (sorry Dad!)

On the fly pond, the most impressive angler of the day was young Iain Monaghan.

I was extremley impressed with this young mans casting ability and the fact that he was using natural flies.

He had five fish yesterday on a GRHE and lost a big fish into the bargain.

The hare’s ear that he had was so mangled, I nipped up to the lodge and tied him up a replacement.

Keep it up fella, you may end up a Scottish champion.

Finally, as promised, back to the bait pond. Rhys Fox, aged eight, spent his very first fishing trip with us yesterday.

Rhys with his first ever fish alongside a proud uncle

His uncle Robert came into the lodge and being a fluff chucker asked for a wee bit of advice on how to make sure that the wee man got a fish.

I always kind of worry when this happens because you desperately want the newcomer to catch.

In anycase, thankfully Rhys caught his very first fish and followed it up soon after with a second.

Robert tells me that he’s now truly hooked, so we look forward to seeing him again soon.

It really does pay off to get wrapped up and get yourself out to the fishery. I’ve said it for years, mostly as a punter that Carbeth really comes into its own in the winter, and I’m talking about breaking ice to get to the water!

Couple of nice peices of news to help you out – the cameras that we have all around the fishery are going to be hooked up to the site. That way you have a fair idea of what to expect before you arrive.

Neat eh?

And the other is a special bait competiton on boxing day. There’ll be big prizes (£100 first, £75 second) for heaviest bag.

We’ll have the usual fluff chuckers the day after.

Remember our November competition is on Sunday 29th – We are going to elect office bearers for the club on that day, so I hope to see you there if not before.

Till then, tight lines (and no’ uppa tree)

Paul