Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Trout & Salmon

WE HAVE KNOWN for more than 30 years what a disaster salmon farming in Scotland has been for wild salmon and sea-trout in the west Highlands and Islands. But throughout this time any attempts to get those in power to act to redress the situation were invariably met with the proverbial brick wall - staunch, unwavering political intransigence. Politicians, of pretty well all persuasions, were resolute, one could say blinkered, in their support for the salmon farming industry, denying that it was anything but a benign force and preventing any kind of meaningful regulation or scrutiny. However, in the last few weeks it has become increasingly clear that there is a sea change among many of Scotland’s politicians. The Scottish Parliament’s Inquiry into salmon farming is now well underway. The…

EARLY-SEASON BUZZER fishing can be satisfyingly predictable - almost formulaic, you might say. Solve the variables of depth, speed of retrieve and pattern choice, then add the constant of eagerly feeding fish, and you have an excellent chance of catching some outstanding trout. However, this predictability has an unforeseen downside. Spurred on by your initial success, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you only need cast a team of heavy buzzer imitations, straighten the line and hold on. From late spring, if conditions are favourable with a light, steady breeze and air temperatures in the low-to-mid teens, the large and prolific chironomid or buzzer species begin to hatch. Their numbers are huge, making their pupae a major food source - during those few productive weeks it…

BURN MOUTH – The Cattie Burn meets the Dee on the outside bend after flowing under the old military road at the Mains of Potarch. A small, high-water pool that fishes between 3ft-5ft. In heavier water, bolt up here as soon as you arrive. SUICIDE – Treacherous. It fishes in any height but less nimble anglers prefer it in higher water because they are forced on to the grassy bank and don’t need to cast a long line. Wading is quite an experience but the water you are covering is beautiful and many would say it’s worth the risk because it’s productive. A great holding pool. OTTER TRAP – Once, with the gauge at 3ft, you would fish it off the bank, but since Storm Frank in December 2015 the…

“He could watch local fishermen, including dry-fly luminaries, Francis Francis and Marryat” HISTORY KNOWS SIR Edward Grey as a towering statesman, scion of a dynasty of statesmen, great nephew of a prime minister, grandson of a home secretary, cousin to a couple of future foreign secretaries. His destiny was writ plain enough. He was to become Britain’s longest-serving foreign secretary, a realist who foresaw, against the climate of optimistic jingoism, the catastrophe and drawn-out misery of a war he strove so hard to avoid. “The lamps are going out all over Europe,” he said to a friend on the evening before war was declared in 1914, “we shall not see them lit again in our time.” But fishermen see things differently. For fly-fishermen, Sir Edward Grey is revered as the…

SO IT’S CATCH-AND-RELEASE IN WALES In the April issue of T&S, your correspondent John Eardley made several comments and assertions on NRW’s proposals for new salmon and sea-trout fishing bylaws. These failed to take account of NRW’s obligations to manage Welsh fish stocks now and in the future. We have previously discussed these matters on several occasions with Mr Eardley and others. He, and the other correspondents, make several incorrect and inaccurate points but space dictates that we are unable to address them in detail here. Instead we would refer them and others to information available on the fisheries section of the NRW website, where responses to all concerns may be found. We will also be happy to continue our dialogue with Mr Eardley and others. This matter comes down…

IT WAS APRIL 3, 1972, my first day on a reservoir fly-fishing for trout. Armed with a borrowed Richard Walker Superlite, a floating line and a single box of flies I walked along the bank to where I could see a number of trout rising. Overhead was a column of small dark insects that my minimal knowledge indicated might be adult buzzers. Opening the fly-box I was confronted by a selection of traditional winged wet-flies and a few large bushy dries. Nothing in the box looked much like the insects I could see in the air. I had read that buzzers hatched from the water after rising to the surface as pupae, but nothing in there was remotely like a buzzer pupa. Back then you could walk about with a…

Q WHENEVER I’VE finished a pool, or it’s time for home – I have three last casts. One for myself, one for the fish and another for luck. Do you do something similar and, if so, how often does it produce a bonus fish? Jonathan Wakeham, via email A: ONCE UPON a while ago, I was fishing the tail of a pool when a friend who knew the beat well called to me that as I had covered all the productive water, I might as well stop. But something told me to have just a few more casts with the black and yellow tube. A couple of yards further down, I hooked a very nice fish. My best of that season. My friend was surprised, because he believed the water…

MAY, FOR MY money, is when the fly-fishing season gets going. March and April can be okay, but then again, so can a weight-watchers ready meal when you haven’t eaten for 12 hours. As we move into May, the odds of having to cast into the teeth of a howling blizzard are, in theory, dramatically reduced. Malham Tarn, my local and favourite wild brown trout water, opens on May 1 and while casting one’s clout before May is out is not recommended at this altitude, it is possible on certain days. Perhaps the best thing is the number of options, in terms of tackle and technique, which become available to us that will realistically take fish. Everything from lures on a fast-sinker to a delicately placed single dry-fly will have…

IT IS with great sadness that we report the death of one of Scotland’s greatest angling ambassadors, Willie Miller, of Uddingston, who passed away in January, the day after his 82nd birthday. Willie served the United Clyde Angling Protective Association for more than 60 years, first on the executive committee and then as a director when the association became a limited company. During that time, Willie served as the assistant secretary and treasurer, before taking on the role of public relations officer. He was the chairman, in 1987, when the association celebrated its centenary. He worked tirelessly at the rearing ponds at Abington and could be seen year after year carrying buckets of young trout far and wide with which to stock the Clyde. Without doubt Willie was possibly UCAPA’s…

OVER THE YEARS I have caught several thousands of trout. In mentioning this I am not trying to impress you, not implying that, with thousands of trout to my name, I must be a fisher of extraordinary knowledge and skill. No, I have been at it for 50 seasons and I should be a poor fisher indeed if my score had not by now run into thousands. The reason I bring up the fact that lots and lots of trout have eaten my flies is because it is perhaps remarkable that, until the end of last May, not a single one of these numerous trout had eaten an imitation of the fly that takes its name from the most beautiful month of the year. The Kilnsey water on the Wharfe…

THE BEAT: Three rods share 1.5 miles of right-bank fishing. Traditionally, it’s a high-water beat, but it will fish well in low water. Some wading is tricky, but the better pools are easily fished. There’s a lovely new hut, roomy enough for groups, with cooking facilities, solar power and a toilet. It’s private and well located. Commonty doesn’t suffer from noise, nestled far from the superbikes and delivery vans on the Banchory road. There is excellent access to the hut via a well-maintained track. Cars can be used around half the length of the beat. In 2017, some 116 salmon were caught. Sea-trout fishing can be good with 33 fish landed last year. BOOKING: £55-£100+VAT per rod day. Visit: fishpal.com Accommodation: Two estate cottages and the five-star Potarch Lodge.Web:ballogie-estate.co.uk/ballogie-estateTel: 013398…

I AM ADDICTED to fishing trips. As soon as I’m back from one I’m thinking of the next. Never mind all the very good reasons that yet another fishing adventure would be a seriously bad idea - the weakness of the addict always beats the strength of common sense. So, at the end of September 2016 I was heading for the Kola Peninsula again, this time to a river that was new to me, the Ponoi, rated by many to be the best of the Russian salmon fisheries. Two days’ travelling gives one all the time in the world for self-analysis. Why was I doing this? I had already, in July, had a week on the Reisa in Norway. I had been through hell getting my Russian visa, with weeks…

WE ALL KNOW that every year wild salmon start one of the planet’s greatest natural migrations, travelling thousands of miles out to sea to return to their natal river to spawn. It’s a journey this incredible species has been making for more than 60 million years. But these remarkable fish are now dying somewhere en route in huge numbers. This year for every 100 salmon smolts that leave our rivers for the sea only four or five may return - a decline of nearly 70 per cent in just 25 years. Over the past two decades or more, issues relating to the marine survival of Atlantic salmon have dominated the concerns of scientists, fishery managers and anglers. During that time, the seas in the north-east Atlantic have shifted to a…

Laurence Catlow’s article (January) on the River Irfon brought back some wonderful memories. I fished the Irfon during the 1970s and had excellent sport with the trout, and we usually had a decent run of salmon at the back-end of the season. Also, there was a good head of chub, which provided fine sport on a dry-fly, although grayling were fairly rare. I remember conversations with a chemist in Llanwrtyd Wells who was monitoring the acidity levels of the river in 1972, as he had already seen a deterioration in the quality of the water. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. I am glad to see that the river is on the road to recovery.…

SOME PEOPLE HAVE one big fly-box. Because I fish a wide range of waters I tend to carry dedicated boxes - a lot of them - so that I can match fly selection to specific types of waters and circumstances. However, I do have one fairly large box that I refer to as my “go anywhere, do anything” box. About 25 per cent of this box is made up of Snatchers, a style of fly that can be used to tackle many game fish species. Snatchers are truly versatile. For those of you who have no idea what a Snatcher is, they are a simple concept: basically, palmered flies on a grub/midge-style hook. The interesting factor relating to this fly style, to me at least, is that it shows evolution…

THIS MONTH’S FLY belongs to that branch of salmon fishing which might be called the dark arts - a specialist tactic that might deliver a fish when all else has failed. It’s also unique because an entire book is dedicated to it. In Salmon on a Dry Fly, published in 1987, author Derek Knowles describes in detail the creation of the Yellow Dolly. Fishing dry-flies for salmon, at least in these islands, is not a mainstream tactic and more often than not it’s dismissed as idiosyncratic. There are, as Derek describes, a number of examples where North American anglers, such as Le Branche at Cairnton on the Dee, have tried and failed to establish the dry-fly as a legitimate tactic over here. Derek’s book caught my eye recently, and having…

SALMON AND LORNA DOONE Near the northern coast of Exmoor National Park is Doone Cottage at Rockford, a listed grade II detached house dating from the late 17th century with subsequent extensions, with fishing on the East Lyn river. Many places in the area will be familiar to readers of R D Blackmore’s classic tale Lorna Doone : Brendon is close by, Lynton and Lynmouth are both four miles away and Barnstaple 22. The Cottage has been fully restored in the last ten years and provides two reception rooms, a garden room, a study/snug, four bedrooms and a bathroom. Gardens and grounds extend to four acres and include fishing on the East Lyn, an attractive river that flows into the Bristol Channel at Lynmouth, and has runs of salmon and…

OVERLOOKED FOR YEARS, Commonty is that beat you’ve heard of, but has never been top of your list. Perhaps you’ve read the name in catch reports a few times, but you never give it a second thought, or maybe you’ve never heard of it at all, which is a great shame. Whatever the reason, I have placed myself in a difficult position by writing this piece. I want to keep this fantastic three-rod, right-bank beat opposite Woodend to myself and a few select pals. But I also want to give Commonty the write-up it deserves. No longer is it a foregone conclusion that most Dee beats are booked one week at a time; even half weeks are becoming rare for reasons that have been well documented lately. Day rods are…

USUALLY, A PROMISING spring day is all the encouragement we need to reach for a box of upwinged patterns. Large darks, olive uprights and iron blues, it’s easy to be seduced by these dainty flies, especially where they flourish. But there’s a danger we can become blinkered. The most obvious example is Duffer’s Fortnight when fishermen travel for miles, and spend a fortune, on hearing the mayfly is up - only for the weather to scupper all hope of a decent hatch. Yet next year those same rods will be back, praying that this time Mother Nature will smile on them. By contrast, how many of us down tools when we get wind of a grannom hatch? The drab grannom might not offer the spectacle of a courting mayfly, but…

DID I EVER tell you about the time I went after taimen in Mongolia? No? Well I will, if only to save you the trouble. I’m prompted to do so after seeing that photograph of Peter Holdsworth’s 50lb huchen caught in November on the Sora River, Slovenia (T&S February). What a magnificent specimen. It’s the kind of catch that sends us flicking through the fishing travel websites looking for something different. Up to about 15 years ago I’d never heard of a huchen or its close relative, the taimen, though I know now that huchen were once introduced to the Thames. At the turn of the 19th century, the Thames Salmon Association, concerned that pollution and locks were ruining salmon migration, imported 20,000 huchen eggs from Austria in the hope…

Your latest, much appreciated, April issue has just arrived. In the Letters pages, you publish three old black-and-white photographs from a reader who requests identification of the river and people depicted. While I cannot help with the name of the fisherman or his gillie – though he is probably a member of the Radcliffe family, who owned the river at that time – I can confirm, after some debate, that the location is the Long pool of the River Forss in Caithness. At first sight, the attached picture of my son-in-law, Hugo Cubitt, landing his first fish in the Sea pool, ably assisted by gillie Andrew Jackson, seemed to clinch the matter, the similarities being so obvious. However, close inspection indicated otherwise, the hills in the background not being quite…

Q LAST YEAR, for my birthday, my wife bought me a day’s guided fishing at a local fishery. I loved it so much I’m looking forward to taking up the sport properly this season. As I have four fisheries within a short drive, would you recommend I concentrate on one, or visit each to widen my experience? Cyril Blyth, by e-mail A: I ALWAYS suggest to newcomers at our fishing schools to concentrate on one fishery. Get to know the water well. Find the deep holes and obvious hotspots where you see trout being caught regularly. Take a mental note, or, like me, keep a diary of where fish are caught in various wind directions. Never encroach on someone else’s fishing but an enquiry when walking past could lead to…

BREATHABLE WADERS ALLOW us to wade and fish with a level of comfort previously unimaginable but they can also be the cause of wet anglers submitting irate warranty claims. While design and manufacturing faults do occur, the causes of most common problems lie with anglers and the way they choose and use breathable waders. Waders can be punctured or torn by hooks, barbed wire and thorns. Fabric, seams and booties can fail when overstretched or subjected to abrasion when waders don’t fit. A good fit will ensure your waders last and is best achieved in a shop stocking a wide range of sizes. If you’re buying online, check the returns policy and the cost of returning waders that don’t fit. Booties must fit your feet: if they’re too tight they…

England & Wales BORDER ESK RIVER LEVELS prior to the big freeze and heavy snow were pretty consistent. From Feb 22-March 6 the river was about 1 ft or less at Canonbie. As I write (March 6) the river is rising after snowmelt. This could result in a bank-high spate. Some spring salmon enter the Esk in the early months but few rods venture out. Some beats do not open until April 1, when usually there is a number of early sea-trout and the odd salmon about. One springer was caught on the lower river on the Westall beat, between Longtown and Netherby. The 11-pounder fell to a Gold-bodied Willie Gunn. The Border Esk and Liddel Angling Club AGM had to be cancelled due to the atrocious weather. It was…

 “Happiness is a fleeting thing – The blush of dawn or the buds of spring; You pursue it madly, it’s almost taken When you find it has left you alone, forsaken.” “It emerges. It flies. It scores. It dies. And it is consumed by a simply colossal trout” I AM, OR will be, eternally - rather than fleetingly - grateful to Elizabeth Utterback for the stanza above and I can tell you that the rest of her little contemplation is of the same quality. Love, too, is a fleeting thing, we are told, by none other than Sir Mick Jagger by all accounts and he’s one who should know whereof he speaks, I guess. “You see it there just fluttering and it’s gone,” was his assessment. What a fleeting thing…