Fish of the Week: Snakes alive!

An absolute deluge raised the rivers and put paid to my plans for some Grayling bugging.

Checking the SEPA river levels ahead of time has saved many a wasted journey, I’m sure.

You’ll still catch in the floods but I’m not sure I’ve got enough skill or tungsten beads to fish nymphs in high-coloured water.

I did manage to pick up a cancellation for a boat on the Lake of Menteith. The fishing is superb at the moment with an excellent stamp of fish averaging over 3lb .

The Menteith fish are grown on in the water and due to the closure in April and May, many are being stocked considerably later than planned.

The fish were still up in the water as the water temperature hasn’t dropped too much, there were fish caught on dries nymphs and buzzers throughout the day so no need to pack away the floating lines just yet.

With their season being extended, there will be some top-end sport throughout the winter on the lake.

If you’re after some serious sport, the Gateside ropes have been taken down recently. This is a great time to get in and cover underfished water.

The go-to method if you are fishing up around there has got to be snakes.

Every generation seems to produce patterns that are “the” fish catcher in any loch from small stillwaters to the big reservoirs.

The 80s had the Booby, 90s The Humungous, 2000s The Blob and the Snake fly could be the latest in that line.

Fur-based patterns such as leeches and zonkers are nothing new. The Minkie is a classic Fry Time pattern that pulses enticingly on slow retrieves, yet undulates with a fast roly-poly.

The snake is a modern take on these styles, where a zonker has a long tail and a hook at the top of the fly, a snake fly has a long tail with the hook in the tail and are tied much longer.

The fur puffs up and pulsates when pulled, the hide contorts when you pause the retrieve and both of these really entice trout to chase and bite the flies. As a snake fly is a relatively large pattern, I fish it as a single fly on a heavier rod using 8lb+ fluorocarbon leader. You can range it from 5-10ft for the booby version and 10ft+ for neutral or weighted versions. Using a single long fly with a stiff leader helps turn over the cast and reduces tangles.

Seeing as the plan is to get aggressive takes from much larger than average fish, adding a dropper is an unnecessary risk.

Tied in classic trout water colours, a black and silver snake and a green and white snake fly are variations on Cats’ Whisker or Humungous. They are the perfect patterns for big Rainbows and Browns all season long. They basically tick all the boxes to induce the take, movement, silhouette, target point, disturbance, colour etc and they’ve been proven to catch both recent stock fish and wised-up pressured fish.