Luck helps MacAuslan land trophy
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
THE excellent entry of 26 members who turned out for Dounreay Fly Fishing Association’s All Lochs competition last Friday were pleased it was an evening competition as that meant they only had to endure four hours of the cold wind plus a late shower.
At the 6pm launch on the four lochs included in the allocation draw quite a strong north-west wind and the low temperature did not inspire confidence that large baskets of trout would be weighed in at the Brown Trout Hotel, Watten, following lines up at 10pm.
This proved to be the case when over a third of the anglers returned empty-handed and another half dozen only produced one trout each.
However, it is often the case in fly-fishing that someone comes up with a tactic that works well in poor conditions and on his first DFFA competition since 2009, Anson MacAuslan was in luck when his attempt at keeping warm produced a good basket of Watten fish.
Using a floating line, which he retrieved as fast as possible, he managed to land eight trout weighing 6.68 lbs to secure the Ian Hanna Trophy and 20 championship points. MacAuslan’s two best flies were an Alan Porteous-tied Black Cat and a James Simpson-tied Laser Wrap Cat.
After struggling to launch boats in the face of the strong wind at the south end of Loch Calder, Tony Chalmers and Toby Bracey proceeded to wrap up second and third places.
With a nice 1.96 lbs fish in his basket of five for 4.23 lbs Chalmers took the 17 points for second place.
He had used a Wake Saver line and Kate MacLaren, Clan Chief, Bibio and Black Peacock Spider flies in the sheltered new bay area.
Bracey had also fished the new bay along with part of the west bank for his third-place (15 pts) bag of six for 4.06 lbs – he used Ghost Tip and DI 5 lines with Kate MacLaren, Peacock Cormorant and Clan Chief flies.
Proving that another loch could produce good trout, Peter Creasey returned from St John’s with two lovely fish with one at 2.25 lbs pushing his total weight to 3.57 lbs.
This gave him the 14 points for fourth place plus two for the best fish of the evening.
James Simpson shared a boat with MacAuslan but could not get his flies to work as efficiently as the winner. Nevertheless, his basket of four for 3.44 lbs put him in fifth place (13 pts).
St John’s and Watten produced baskets weighing 2.67 lbs for George Robertson (3) and Dave Savage (2) who bagged 12 pts each for joint sixth place – Savage having a 1.87 lbs St John’s fish to his credit.
After three events Bracey is in a healthy position for a second DFFA championship having extended his lead to 21 points. He now has 55 with Creasey moving up to second on 34 and Chalmers third on 32.
Rob Hawken is next on 30 with Alex Donald fifth on 29 then Dick Bolton and Bill Robertson tied on 26.
The club’s next competition is another All Lochs one – this time an all day event tomorrow.
This will be the second attempt at this competition following postponement due to bad weather on May 5.
