By Yon Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond 12 -14th June 2015

Had a couple of days on Lomondside camping and kayaking at the weekend with some good friends and where I met some new one's.

Responsible camping in the National Park by responsible people where no trace was left behind.

The way it should be ....

All of the wood used for the camp fire was deadfall with not a single piece of wood cut from a living tree and all trace of the camp fire was removed before leaving. Would've liked to have posted an as it was before we arrived picture before leaving but the charge on the camera ran out. Unfortunately, there are just some things you can't plan for ;-)

            

MAY THE FIRE BE ALWAYS LIT !

Browns and Bows

Nice brown trout for my pal and a hard fighting rainbow for me up at his club loch today. Nothing else to the boat but a few others each that weren't too keen on coming aboard. The rainbow was 2lb 8oz and scrapped well above it's weight. Thought I was going to lose it and had a heck of a bother getting it into the net. When I finally did the fly fell out. A nice conditioned full finned rainbow trout which seemed to have been eating a lot of reeds ?

A wild wet day on the kayaks

Met Dan and Declan today for a wee bit of kayaking down at Lochwinnoch. Driving down, the wind must have been blowing about force five and when I crossed the bridge between the two lochs, the water was a light chocolate brown with white horses and spray flying.

Dan and Declan had already had a wee paddle before I arrived and after a brief chat we set out. Wasn't too bad to start with but then a squall came through making padlling and lure setting quite difficult. Dan decided to head across the Loch for hopefully calmer waters and I headed for Declan to let him know the plans. Just as I caught up with Declan, I hooked a wee jack pike about 9 inches long that must've headbutted the lure as it was hooked under the chin.

Didin't take a photo as it was just too wet with the spray flying and difficult enough to control what was going on. Put the wee guy back and headed over to join Dan with Declan following. We decide to head down the loch but it was just too wild and headed back in for a re-think.

The photo's don't show how difficult the paddling actually was but it was hard going.

Decided the better part of valour might be to head for the canal where we could find shelter from the wind and rain and this we did but didn't expect the weed growth to be as hellish as it was.

We soldiered on for a bit but found trolling the lures for a couple of miles really hard going until Dan eventually hooked into this massive beauty

With Declan losing a better fish close to home time around seven o'clock.

Had a wee chat with some of the local lads who were catching tiny perch for a bit of fun from the bank.

Great day out with Dan and Declan, looking forward to the next time already.