Fishing The Fly Scotland Forum

Hamish Young

River Annan - 10&11th November
« on: 12/11/2006 at 16:17 »
I went to the River Annan for 2 days to fish with some American chums.

I generally got pretty cold and wet and have not much in the way of positive comments about the beat descriptions as provided on a well known Scottish based internet booking site. Wildly apocryphal might be a suitable turn of phrase  :wink:

Oh, and we caught f*ck all as it flooded - as Noah went by he asked if we would like a lift to the town of Annan at one point  :shock:

Sandy Nelson

River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #1 on: 12/11/2006 at 16:29 »
Bloody tourists

 :lol:

Noah had probably caught all the fish to feed his inmates

Sandy

Hamish Young

River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #2 on: 12/11/2006 at 16:33 »
Quote from: "spiderman"

Noah had probably caught all the fish to feed his inmates


Aye - quite possibly  :grin:  But he seemed kind of focused on getting the occasional football, fire extinguisher and major deciduous forest out of the river instead of Salmo Salar (I think he'd probably caught the 2 he needed already  :z4 ).

Mike Barrio

River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #3 on: 12/11/2006 at 17:26 »
Quote
major deciduous forest out of the river


Ah yes ......... I'm quite good at catching trees, as I'm sure you've noticed  :z4

Pity about your trip though, I know you were looking forward to it  :z6

Mike

Jim Eddie

Annan
« Reply #4 on: 13/11/2006 at 07:51 »
So apart from that you had a great time  :lol:

 :z18

Jim

Hamish Young

River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #5 on: 13/11/2006 at 09:46 »
Jim,
Aye - Noah is a good laugh and "stands his hand" without too much prompting  :grin:
A pish day by the water is better than a good day in the office  :lol:

wildfisher

River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #6 on: 13/11/2006 at 12:34 »
You should have come to the Isla with us Hamish. It would have cost you less and your catch would have been roughly the same. :grin:

Sandy Nelson

River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #7 on: 13/11/2006 at 15:39 »
No Grayling playing then Fred?

How was the access to the river?

Sandy

wildfisher

River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #8 on: 13/11/2006 at 15:56 »
Quote from: "spiderman"
No Grayling playing then Fred?

How was the access to the river?

Sandy


Don't want to hog Hamish's thread here but – no I had none. Brian had two on the trotted maggot (he knows what he is doing). It is a long time since I fished there and it has changed hugely. Next time I will pack a machete  to gain easier access to the banks. Actually the river was high and coloured and that made wading far too dangerous – you know what it's like – it's a deep and dangerous river with a lot of high banks.  It reminds me of the lower section of the Alford council beat on the Don. That's  a "life in your hands"  job too!  The day was very cold and windy. The water rose another foot when we were there so it was not ideal. Having said all that -  we had a great day out in good company. Met a few  new guys from the wild fishing forum. Like all the others they are great blokes. We  started off with a superb  breakfast at the Belmont Arms (to be recommend) and finished with a pint of Guinness. What more can a man ask for? Apart from the occasional grayling! Got my season ticket - £10 – so I'll be back, hopefully on a less windy day.

salar35

Re: River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #9 on: 06/11/2007 at 21:38 »
Hhhmmmmm, not only are the comments on the Annan pretty grotty, but there's a moderator warning that because it has not been posted for over 120 days, I should consider starting a new topic. The Annan clearly hasnae mony freends.

I'm off there tomorrow (Wed 7 November) for three days on the lower river with a great wee group of sassenachs (michtie me, I must be mellowing calling sassenachs "great" - but it's true in this instance), and staying at a cute wee hotel at Ecclefechan. Last year, I was fishing the same beat in peaty water and the comment about 'dangerous' ain't half true  - in one particular pool you had to ease out knee-deep along subsurface rock pinnacles which made the Cuillins look like Bennachie, and if you took a one-foot step in the wrong direction, you were into twenty feet of water. It all kept the old sphincter quite tight, I can tell you.

But there will be nae sign of Noah this autumn, with the river at under 5" on the gauge. So I travel there with hope in my heart (and a tin of dew-worms up my sleeve just in case a red Ally's or a gold stoatie don't work). 

Hamish Young

Re: River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #10 on: 06/11/2007 at 23:01 »
I'd go back to the Annan - I was unlucky with the weather last year  :z10 and no time this year  :shock :cry

Maybe next year  :cool:

Mike Barrio

Re: River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #11 on: 06/11/2007 at 23:11 »
Hi "salar35"

Re: "there's a moderator warning that because it has not been posted in for over 120 days"

Thanks for pointing that out, it is one of the forum defaults that I hadn't noticed. I have just updated the system so that the warning should not appear in the future.

Best wishes
Mike Barrio

Hamish Young

Re: River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #12 on: 07/11/2007 at 08:58 »
I dunno  :z8 guess it's reasonable having a message suggesting a new thread is started when nothing's been posted in an old topic for a third of a year :!
A facility I'd be inclined to keep  :wink

Mike Barrio

Re: River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #13 on: 08/11/2007 at 14:22 »
I dunno  :z8 guess it's reasonable having a message suggesting a new thread is started when nothing's been posted in an old topic for a third of a year :!
A facility I'd be inclined to keep  :wink

Fair comment Hamish ....... tell you what, a compromise, I've reset the default to 180 days :wink

Best wishes
Mike

salar35

Re: River Annan - 10&11th November
« Reply #14 on: 25/11/2007 at 22:25 »
Man, but it's fun chatting on a relaxed thread, ie something different to the fraught one about the Royal Bervie Salmon! I didn't mean any criticism about the "old thread" situation here......it was just an introductory comment.

Anywa, our three days on the Annan (Cleughhead, just below Hoddom) were a series  :z6 of gales, bright blue skies with scudding clouds, some sharp heavy bursts of rain.....and a low clear river at a cold 42 degrees. There were quite a few old stagers about (including one huge kipper that emptying the water out of the deep dub it was resting in, every it sloshed on the surface). And some some silver 'uns were running hard off each high tide. But by the very late afternoon of the 2nd day, we hadn't touched a thing on the fairly typical 1-1.5" aluminium or brass tubes and bottle-tubes on 15lb Maxima and medium-to-fast sinking tips. So I thought, "stuff this for a game of sodgers" and switched to 12lb fluoro, an intermediate sink-tip and that most classic of November borders flies, a wispy orange Ally's dressed on a tiny size 12 silver Salar treble.

One lost and one pulled fish later, I let the others in on the secret and it resulted in five fish hooked, played and lost or C&R'd the next day including one well into the teens. But the only one actually landed, was on the old River Cowie autumn stand-by of three lobworms drifted unweighted through a deep slow trench on a single size 4 silvered sea bait hook. Some don't like the Annan... :z6count me amongst those that do. But the fish definitely don't read the usual textbooks on autumn flyfishing.

PS Anyone know of a reliable source for these silver or gold Partridge Salar treble fly hooks? They're like gold dust (I got mine off Ebay, of all places).

 




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