2025 Veterans Cup Round 1 Lake of Menteith
MVFF Veterans Cup update from Jock Royan
The long anticipated Military Veterans Veteran’s Cup first round took place at the Lake of Menteith yesterday 30th March. The car park was alive with lots of buzz, catching-up, general banter and 26 happy faces, quickly silenced by the finest Rose House in Perth Lorne Roll.
Conditions were initially pretty squally however the wind abated around 11:00 and we spent the majority of the day in bright sunshine. Pre-match reports indicated that Hotel Bay, Sam’s Point and the Eastern Basin were current hot-spots but due to the windy start, most of the boats headed for the sheltered areas of Butts, Malling Shore and Lochend. By lunchtime, most boats had encountered the hard-fighting Menteith trout but not quite in the numbers we expected. It was clear that although conditions were good, the trout weren’t that keen to play.
Hot off the River Spey after a week at Craigellachie and en-route South, Phil Thomas joined us for lunch and celebrated the capture of his first Spey Salmon. It’s no mean feat catching a March Salmon in any Scottish River, so another cherished memory in Phil’s Fishing diary.
The Malling Shore had proved the most productive area during the morning session, so after Soup, Sandwiches and Chocolate Cake generously provided by John Paul Maestri & The Rose House, it was time for new leaders, flies and a tweak to the game plan.
The boats were again well-spread with half the fleet in the Eastern Basin and the remainder split between Hotel Bay, Gateside Bay and the Malling Shore. High-flyer, Al Gamble’s afternoon sortie, took him into Gateside Bay, where he fished the hairy hole, then navigated all the way down the rope. His radar locked on to “2 old duffers catching 4 fish in a drift” at the burn mouth so he quickly acquired his target, locked on and intercepted. After catching half a dozen, he called in the Artillery in the shape of Jock Kettles who quickly lined up his target and banged out 3-rapid. Phew!
We finished at 17:00, well most of us…..as usual our illustrious Chairman Mao’s attention seeking antics saw him being towed into the beach like Royalty. Clearly late in leaving the Malling Shore, they developed “engine trouble” during RTB. Thankfully Quint quickly re-connected the fuel-line and the boat was returned to service before Magic disembarked! We all handed in our cards and due to the geographical split, headed in every direction possible.
I’d like to thank my boat partner Graham Fulton for a great day. We had a great laugh and certainly put the World to rights. I’m pretty confident that if we were able to run the country for a month, unemployment would significantly fall along with those claiming benefits, there would only be 2 genders and the entire Country would be given to spoonful of cement to MTFU.
Great to see some new names at the top of the leaderboard! A reminder, particularly for new members that your best 4 x scores from the 7 x Veterans Cup Rounds will count towards the overall prize. Those with equal fish numbers from the results below are separated by the time of their first fish. Round 2 will take place on Sunday 27th April and details will follow soon. Look forward to seeing you all there.
Al Gamble - 10 Fish = 1 point
Ian Howland - 8 Fish = 2 points
Ian Macgregor - 6 Fish = 3 points
Kenny McClymont - 6 Fish = 4 points
Stevie McArthur - 5 Fish = 5 points
Jock Royan - 5 Fish = 6 points
Glen Lamont - 5 Fish = 7 points
Glen Grant - 4 Fish = 8 points
JP Maestri - 4 Fish = 9 points
Geoff Allan - 4 Fish = 10 points
Allan Macleod - 4 Fish = 11 points
Eck Moffat - 4 Fish = 12 points
Les Grant - 3 Fish = 13 points
Graham Fulton - 3 Fish = 14 points
Byran Yip - 3 Fish = 15 points
Graeme Ferguson - 3 Fish = 16 points
Jock Kettles - 3 Fish = 17 points
Jim Caruthers - 1 Fish = 18 points
Graham Steele - 1 Fish = 19 points
Dave Penny - 1 Fish = 20 points
Eddie Fullerton - 1 Fish = 21 points
Sandy Campbell - Blank = 30 points
Lindsay O’Hara - Blank = 30 points
Cammy Duncan - Blank = 30 points
William Shepherd - Blank = 30 points