Alec Bowler fishes kingennie For The Final Heat Of The Scottish National

An Early start was needed leaving the house at 5.45 am for the trip to Forbes of kingennie for the final heat of the Scottish national Stillwater championship to try and qualify for the semi-final after a long drive I arrived at 8 am. Having fished kingennie a few times I had already decided I was going to fish a di 3 40 plus with a yellow dancer on point and a red tag olive worm on the dropper.( Olive with amber legs attached to the body instead of olive just a small tweak available on the website soon ) and a bung rod and a cat bug set at 4ft. Peg draw was at 9 am I drew peg 12 on the bottom pond wasn’t the best peg draw for me.

So, I started with the pulling rod, first cast and fish on it was landed and was the second fish of the day. After Few more casts and a few offers I decided to take the dancer off and went with two worms instead first cast, fish on and dropped it couple more offers but nothing stuck. Onto next peg up the top pond first cast again with worm’s fish landed, good start two fish from two pegs few offers but nothing from next two pegs were blanks. Onto peg 4 on the bottom pond, a peg I like when the wind blows into it unfortunately the wind was blowing the other way. I decided to put my bung rod too use put my cat bug a bit deeper at 6ft took my eyes off the bung for a second to look back and couldn’t  see it lifted into a good fish that decided to head out into open water  running with my fly line my line got wrapped around a screw on the platform ping lost the lot. With half the time left on the peg I just fished my pulling set up a blessing as I landed two fish and that was my morning session. 4 fish from 3 pegs I knew a few guys had a good morning on hot pegs there was 8 places up for grabs so still plenty to fish for after a bite to eat it was back out for afternoon session. I had two of the hot pegs but not until the last two pegs.

Before the hooter went to start, I had changed from catbug to coral mitten as the pond went flat calm. First cast fish on and landed it unfortunately that was all I got on this peg. Onto peg 2 on bottom pond I started pulling the worms again I felt the fish pulling at the legs but not locking up I think they were getting a bit spooky. So, I tried going slower then tried faster to try and get the fish to commit more short fast pulls with a pause half way through I managed to land two more fish. Next peg I drew a blank. The next peg I stuck the bung back on as it was flat calm again, the bung dipped fish on and landed.

The last two pegs were the hot pegs but had took a pounding.  Peg 14 I started pulling then tried the bung not a touch hooter went so onto last peg. I knew I needed a couple of fish to be in with a chance of qualifying. I got onto the peg on the top pond disaster the sluice had opened up and there was a big mucky slick in front of me I tried pulling worms tried black flies nothing the water was filthy. I thought I’m out here, then half way through the peg the water cleared up and out my bung went with the coral mitten as close to the island as I could.  I managed to hook and land 3 more fish total 11 fish from 7 pegs. I knew about 5 guys had high teens so knew my fast fish would come into play I waited for the official s to tally up the scores. I had managed to get through in 6th place result from not the nest peg draw. Semi-final draw straight after the results sees me in the semi at Newton in a couple weeks. Tight lines Alec

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