Midgie hell ends well

Well, you know summer has arrived in Scotland when the unbearable scourge descends in thick clouds threating to turn your leisure time into some kind of sick endurance trial. Having been up at 3am I really didn’t need it!  That’s what happens when the wind I’ve been cursing disappears which serves as a reminder to be careful what you wish for!

Thankfully when I was about 20 yards from the shore they all but disappeared. I started to get a few hits on my shad which I didn’t convert.  I picked up the other rod which was set up with a drop shot rig and cast around the general area letting the rig settle giving it the odd shake. This worked well and I started to pick up little Perch.

It was a good start, plenty of action but when I covered the same area with various shads the hits stopped and there didn’t appear to be any bigger fish around so I moved on. This was repeated regularly. I found what looked like a tightly packed group of fish sitting on top of a pile of rocks and trawled past them without a hit. I did however take notice of two trees as a marker as well as the depth and carried on to another spot and picked my only Pike of the day. I actually lost it a minute or so before when it jumped and threw the hook, must have been properly in the mood.

I went back to the spot I’d noticed and cast roughly into the area which was about 25ft deep and kept my lure deep and slow and picked up a couple of better Perch.

The Perch just kept coming.

I felt as if I was cooking in my drysuit but despite this I had really enjoyable day, clear, warm and quite for the most part except for what seemed like a Cuckoo in every tree.

The factor 30 was running off my face in the afternoon and the 1lt of water I had with me just didn't cut it.