Some very nice baskets of fish have been caught at Loch Leven over the course of last week but that doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. Whilst plenty of fish were being caught in some sessions, others proved really tricky as the fish seemed to 'switch off' for no obvious reason.
Best basket by far was caught by Jeff Lawson & Eck Dewar who caught 27 brownies between them with one comfortably over 6 lbs. They were fishing buzzers in 20 feet of water just west of the Elbow Buoy in the North Deeps. Their 'basket' was not only the largest of the week but also of our season to date! To show it was no fluke, the 2 of them were out again on Friday and caught a further 11 fish between them whilst separately Stuart Moodie had 5, Alan Campbell 4 and Frank Naismith 3, all using buzzer methods.
Some very nice fish are showing in the open water areas with one angler reported seeing 4-5 fish over the course of a one hour period just east of St Serfs all of which in his words 'looked like grilse'. Unfortunately he didn't manage to get any into the boat although he hooked one which he reported as having broken his leader with ease!
The are some areas of algae which have started showing up in various places on the loch but at the moment anyway it appears localised and nothing like the huge biomass we had a few years ago. Outside of those areas, water clarity is still around the 2 meter mark and water temperature is standing at 15.50C.
Best areas seem to have been around the North Buoy and Elbow Buoy, from Scart to Green Isle, Old Manse Bay and the east end of Cavelstone Strip.
Buzzer methods, as you will have gathered from the first part of this report, are probably proving the best choice – weather permitting – but pulling traditional flies on various line densities isalso working when the wind is up and a good open water drift is possible.
Evening fishing is still not properly getting its act together and we are still waiting for some big Yellow Owl hatches (I seem to have been saying that for a few weeks!). We are continuing though to see small hatches of Caenis at night which have been bringing up some very local rises of fish.
There are still a few pike being caught by anglers willing to give them an hour or two. An angler had one at 11 lbs and a second at 12 lbs last week off the Factor's Pier.
From Anthony Glasgow (fished with Phil Cachia on Wednesday evening as part of the EAAC party). As ever, a tough night on Leven, made tougher for me by Phil taking a good fish of approx. a pound and a half with his first cast.  I managed to exercise two fish over the next 2 hours without landing either. We finally changed from drifting over the north deeps to a drift into Castle Island at about half nine and things improved with a couple of rising fish actually seen! I then covered one and missed it, with a growing feeling that 'it wasnae going to be my night'. As we got to within 40m of the island, still drifting invitingly towards the shoreline through weedy water, I got a smash hit from a good fish that went immediately airborne. So I knew it was a good fish and I knew my cast was too long for my rod and that there was weed all around for the fish to retreat into… I then uttered gentle words of encouragement to Phil about how I needed his netting prowess to be in top form if I was to land this decent fish… The fish then dived below and around the boat and I was forced to give line, but to keep everything tight to try and force him back up. This tactic succeeded with such remarkable success that the fish came up out of the water like a polaris missile, right next to us – and unbelievably – hurtled itself right into the bottom of our boat. No need for the net then!  Neither Phil nor I have ever seen anything like this in our collective 90-years as anglers. I'll take 3 ¾ lbs of spawny good luck over skill any day!!  One happy angler at the end of a good night.
Many thanks indeed for taking the time in to send this account of your outing on Wednesday. I have just put it up on our Facebook page to get a wider audience as it is a good read.