Fishing Loch Orchill, Near Auchtarader, 22 Mar

When I met up with two fellow members of the maggotdrowning website, Arkwright and Paul (MrV), just after New Year Paul mentioned about meeting up one day at Loch Orchill, which is very close to Gleneagles Golf Course, north of Stirling. He gave me a call last night and we agreed to meet up today for a dabble.

I left home at 6.45 and arrived at the fishery not long after 7.30. Paul turned up about 10 minutes later and we paid for our tickets (£7.00), acquired some groundbait and had a quick cup of coffee before making our way to the larger of the two coarse lakes. I fished on peg 12 while Paul had number 11.

First impressions were of a very tidy fishery, well laid out with benches set away from the fishing and parking literally by your peg.

I planned to use my pole at 9 metres where I found 6 feet of water and a small ground bait feeder at about 30 metres. Bait was to be either sweetcorn, pellet or maggots (which Paul provided)

I rigged up one top kit, 12 elastic, with a 0.5gm float on 0.20 Avanti liquid crystal low viz line to a size 14 Kamasan B981 hook. Feeder was 4lb main line with a hook length using the same line as the pole rig, to a size 14 B981.

I cupped in two small pots of pellets on the pole line and went in with sweetcorn as hook bait. After a couple of false indications I struck into a good bite and was rewarded with a small mirror of about 1lb. For the next hour and a half I had further indications but could not turn the indications into bites.

I then gave the pole line a rest and went out with the feeder, again with sweetcorn on the hook. This resulted in a common of just under a lb after just a couple of casts. Unfortunately that was all the action I had on either line. In fact there were not a lot of fish coming out. The guy on Peg 13 next to me had 5 fish and Peg 7 produced 3 fish before we left, but nobody else looked very busy

Both Paul and I packed up at about 1-15.

Thanks for the company today Paul, definitely a fishery worth visiting again, especially in the summer months.

Certainly a fishery well worth visiting again, if only for the great views.