The Trades House of Glasgow annual fishing competition was held last Saturday on the Lake of Menteith.
As I'm the convener of fishing for the Skinners and Glover's of the Trades house I thought I should make an appearance, this time last year it was an awful day, heavy rain and windy(not nice) but I was flat on my back in Newcastle as I had done my back in big style unfortunately nobody caught anything and one fellow actually fell head first into the Lake!
This year however things were different, the weather was more clement, overcast but dry with a slight breeze. My boat partner for the day was a nice fellow called Stewart Biggar.
So we left hotel bay heading for Sam's point, it didn't take long before Stewart hit his first of the day,he was using a midge tip as was I, and caught it on a yellow dancer. After drifting down towards hotel bay we headed out into the middle where Stewart said it was fairly shallow and there was a good chance of a fish (kiss of death) Soon we were over at international bay and then further up the road side, we were close to the shore and I put the engine on to take us a little further out, and caught my first on the troll ! Unfortunately it didn't count and was a good 3lb plus.It wasn't long before I felt that familiar tug to find a small Jack pike on the end so I horsed it in, retrieved my flies and put it back.
We then decided to head over to the nets as that's where we would be having lunch with the rest of the crew.
Once there Stewart was broken again. It was nearing lunch time and I decided to have one more lucky cast when i struck into another nice fish (legally) again over three lb. By now i had changed from the midge tip to an intermediate to  a slow sink and was using an olive damsel with a red head.
As it happened there was not a big turn out, the usual motley gang of regulars with only a couple of guys on fish, Tom Gilchrist on an impressive 3 fish total (and a skinner to boot.)
The afternoon proved to be fruitless for me,Stewart was broken three times that day and lost two fish one right at the death, to say he was upset was an understatement, he should have had six as it was the first one he bagged was his only for the day and although I caught three only one of mine counted for the competition.
Dinner and the prise giving was held in the Rob Roy Motel near Aberfoyle where we had a lovely dinner unfortunately we did not win the team trophy however i did receive a prise for the heaviest fish of the day (3.02 ounces) which I noticed my brother Christopher won two years previous, " The Train trophy "plus a new trophy for the heaviest fish of the day for someone under 60 !
All in all I had a cracking day and although Stewart lost a lot of fish we had a good blether on the boat, I highly recommend giving it a shot for anyone who is tempted to fish and wants to meet a great bunch of guys all looking to have a friendly days fishing followed by a nice meal and the chance to get your name on some lovely silver ware.