Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2019 i Trout & Salmon

Britain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, is funding research into why Atlantic salmon are in “terminal decline” in Iceland. He is supporting a collaboration between Imperial College London and Iceland’s Marine Freshwater and Research Institute. Sir Jim, who led The Sunday Times Rich List in 2018 with an estimated personal fortune of £21 billion, is the chairman of INEOS, the chemicals company. He said, “I am determined to do all I can to help protect this magnificent fish which is getting perilously close to extinction.” He is a keen fly-fisher, who has invested heavily in north-east Iceland, buying vast tracts of land with fishing rights on salmon rivers. He said “Conservation is the sole purpose of my involvement in Iceland. I want to help maintain the salmon population, working closely…

NOVEMBER 17 Last chance for the Dee The annual River Dee auction closes on Sunday, November 17. Get your bids in for lots that include fishing at Lower Crathes, deer stalking, salmon flies, fishing jackets and ferry trips to Orkney and Shetland. The prime lot is probably the chance to catch fish on all three Balmoral estates — Balmoral, Abergeldie and Birkhall — in one day to complete the McFernie Challenge, named after gillie David McFernie. Place bids at riverdeeauction.org.uk DECEMBER 1, JANUARY 12 AND FEBRUARY 9 Grayling gatherings This winter’s River Annan Trust Grayling Days are great occasions to meet other anglers, exchange ideas and explore new beats. On each date (Sundays) meet at Lockerbie Lorry Park, 8am-9am. Tickets are £10. Contact Michael Fearns. Tel: 07871 771361. E-mail: annanfishing@outlook.com…

ONE OF THE GREAT JOYS OF THE river is watching the wildlife going about its business. As a youngster, I never had time for birds. We didn’t have much birdlife in our street apart from the house sparrows and the odd thrush and blackbird. Manky-looking ducks on the park lake, sparrows playing in the dust and Auntie Freda’s budgie — that was my ration, growing up in a northern mill town. Early trips to the Tay didn’t add much. You never saw a heron and my first glimpse of goosanders was of dead ones hanging from the river-keeper’s cartridge belt. That was in the days before quotas and protection orders. Thirty years on and that same keeper was prosecuted for shooting a pair of cormorants, though he was cleared by…

THE ELLEM FISHING CLUB ANNUAL river trout competition is much like an ocean yacht race: they are both rubbish spectator sports. The only time you’re likely to see anything is before they start or after they’ve finished. And the trout fishing has an additional problem for the eager spectator: if you do happen to find a competitor he won’t thank you for hanging around to watch: he’d rather be alone. He’s got every chance: with a dozen anglers on well over 50 miles of the River Whiteadder and its tributaries, competing fishermen are thin on the ground. But there were signs that fishing was occurring as we made our way along the beautiful reaches of the Whiteadder: a car with an empty rod rack parked above the bank; a forlorn…

WHAT WOULD BE THE biggest game-changer in trout fly-fishing? How about being able to talk to a trout? Sorry, a trout-human dictionary is some way off. Okay then, as trout are predominantly visual hunters, how about being able to see with the trout’s eyes? Well, maybe we are getting a little closer here. We have been filming trout for more than 30 years and have spent most of the last four years filming rather than fishing. During that time, our beliefs about how trout feed have been the subject of rigorous self-scrutiny. As a result, we no longer believe some “carved in stone” theories. Anatomical and optical investigations have given us a good idea of how a trout’s eyes work. The invention of photography enabled curious fly-fishers to investigate how…

Rooms from £275 per night BB and £385 per night DBB. Bala & District Angling Association trout and grayling day-tickets are £15/day. Visit balaangling.co.uk Brown trout season: March 3-September 30. Salmon season: March 3-October 17. Sea-trout season: March 20-October 17. Grayling season: June 16-March 14. Trout fishing is good all season but best from May onwards. August onwards is the best time for salmon and fish can be caught until the end of the season given water. Grayling fishing can be excellent all season. Guided fishing from Pale Hall: Full day from £120. Half day from £80. Rod and equipment hire at £40 per person (subject to availability) includes everything you need for a day’s fishing. Packed lunches from £22.50/person. For more information, call the hotel on 01678 530 285…

England & Wales BORDER ESK WHILE catches were slowing down in late September and October it was evidents that there was a serious lack of anglers out. Good conditions prevailed for much of the time with ample lifts to get fish moving. There was a run of fresh salmon coming in from the Solway in early October. The Burnfoot Beat below Longtown continues to be the Border Esk’s most productive beat. To October 17 it had produced 179 salmon and 151 sea-trout. While the salmon catches are down on last year sea-trout totals are well up. The lack of any real long settled spells in flows may well have moved fish through this lower Esk beat. Wilkies, The Boxes and Mound are the prime areas. On the Willow and Cauldron…

On Sunday, October 27, more than 300 volunteers from 20 towns and villages across the Scottish Borders helped to clear rubbish from six different rivers on the Tweed system. The Great Borders River Clean collected a whopping 1,850kg of rubbish in just under two hours. The event was organised by keen fly-fisher Tom Rawson, a teacher from Melrose, who was recently named the 2019 River Tweed Champion. The award, in its fourth year, is given by the Tweed Forum in recognition of one who has made an “outstanding commitment to the protection and enhancement of the River Tweed”. Tom’s previous Tweed clean-up, called 7Towns1River, cleared two tonnes of litter. He is planning further events on the Tweed, Tay and Tyne, saying, “Plastic pollution is a global issue. We are the…

Many salmon-fishers make a pilgrimage to Kelso in the Scottish Borders to visit its tackle-shops or gaze at the River Tweed’s famous Junction pool. Soon there may be another reason to set the sat-nav with the opening of perhaps the world’s first salmon-fishing museum. The Tweed has a strong claim to be the birthplace of salmon fishing with rod, reel and fly. Sport on the river has been traced to the 1740s. Museum trustees are seeking individual and corporate financial support for permanent exhibitions and welcome the loan of artefacts, photographs and memorabilia. The museum will be housed at Kelso's town hall. Names of big donor and members will adorn a permanent plaque. Museums can be dusty places, but trustees promise video and audio, as well as maps and art.…

NO. 17 WILLIAM BROWN CURRIE (1930-2013) Bill Currie was a talented and prolific writer on angling, especially on Scottish salmon and sea-trout fishing. His early books were instructional, including Every Boy’s Game Fishing (1960), and several titles in the Oliver and Boyd Angling Paperbacks series, and he was founding editor of the magazine, Rod and Line. His Guinness Guide to Game Fishing must have been one of the most successful fishing books of all time. Today he is best-remembered for his popular articles in Trout and Salmon, and for his later books, particularly Days And Nights Of Game Fishing and A River Within, which beautifully combine instruction and anecdote. His work as a lecturer in English took him to Finland, Greece and Canada, always packing a rod, and the…

Fishing In Lapland (Not dated, c. 1959) Every Boy’s Game Fishing (1960) Game Fishing (1962) Trout, Sea Trout And Salmon Fishing. A Collins Nutshell Book. (1963) Bill Currie was the Series Editor for the Oliver & Boyd Angling Paperbacks Series in the 1960s. Three titles appeared under his name: The Art Of Trout Fishing. (1963) Practical Fishing: Hints And Expert Advice (1964) The Art Of Beginning Fishing. With John Nixon. (1968) A Gamefisher’s Year (1969) The Fishing Waters Of Scotland. With Moray McLaren (1972) The Guinness Guide To Game Fishing (1980) Days And Nights Of Game Fishing (1984) The River Within (1993)…

Ellem Fishing Club — The Oldest Fishing Club in The World — The First 175 Years by Dr J. H. Mitchell (£7 plus p&p) is available from the club secretary, George Wood. Tel: 01361 883 693. E-mail g.ewood@btinternet.com The angling section of The Guinness Book of Records (1994 edition) describes the Ellem Fishing Club as “Oldest Existing Club”. John Ellis, national fisheries and angling manager of the Canal and Rivers Trust, looks at various candidates for this title in an excellent blog. Go to canalrivertrust.org.uk and then search (top right) “oldest angling club”.…

Our book's multi-media format, using high-resolution images, and links to free video clips, allows you to view the behavioural observations that support our research and decide for yourself what is happening. To believe it, you have to watch it. You do not require a Kindle to read the book. You may view it on a wide range of devices, smartphones, iPads, tablets, PCs and Macs, by downloading the free Kindle Reader App. The book will be available from the Kindle Bookstore on Amazon, £9.99. To join our e-mail list for notification when the book is available please contact Don Stazicker on don@stazicker.co.uk Your data will only be used to notify you when the book is available. Use your smartphone camera or tablet to scan this QR code to see a…

Orkney sea-trout season: February 25-October 31. Accommodation: AirBnB with John and Stephanie Hardcastle, The Old School House, Longhope, South Walls, Hoy. Mob: 07585 005 090. E-mail: hardcastle913@btinternet.com Also try visitscotland.com Ferries: North Link from Scrabster to Stromness, then Orkney Ferries from Houton to Lyness. Flies and tackle: Don’t worry too much about flies. Think red, orange (and fluorescents), Orkney peach, white, silver and pearl, and pretty much any combination thereof. These are tried-and-tested colours for Orkney. If fish see them, you’ll catch. Proven patterns include the Stenness Stinger, Platinum Blonde and Potty Palmer. As it happens, I caught my fish on the only fly that I designed for the trip: as I was close to Moaness when I caught with it, I shall call it the Little Mo. Locals mostly…

Giles Catchpole’s regular lighthearted take on our sport usually raises a chuckle; “In deep”, (November) his take on sourcing reliable and inexpensive waders, especially so, given my recent experience. Earlier this year my grandson Louis and I were about to fish the Usk for the first time. He had just put on a teenage growth spurt and I no longer had waders that would fit him. The local tackle-shop was closed and we had almost given up the quest; I was trying, unconvincingly, to explain that fishing from the bank could be just as much fun. We rejoined Granny on her tour of the town’s charity shops. Cue one of those events that fate says was meant to be… Some kind spirit had donated a pair of hardly used size…

Inspired by cake C&F fly-tying products are beautifully engineered and highly desirable, despite being a little pricey. You may think this stand, made for storing and drying newly tied flies, is extravagant when a 50p block of foam will serve the same purpose, but who doesn’t like a treat now and again? It has three tiers of slit foam to accommodate 48 flies. The top is for smaller flies, while the slits on the middle and bottom get wider for bigger patterns. Each tier rotates independently on a central steel rod, which is attached to a metal base with grip pads on the underside. It’s easily assembled and, well, useful. The perfect Christmas present for a serious fly-tyer. C&F FLY PITCH/TROUT £45.99 Funky Flytying. Tel: 01573 224 066. Web: funkyflytying.com…

Speyside’s Gordon Castle Scotland website is raising funds for The Atlantic Salmon Trust’s Missing Salmon Project by donating ten per cent of the price of the goods it sells to fly-fishers. The website sells luxury food, drink and beauty products. With Christmas near, how about a bottle of raspberry gin, garlic oatcakes or a pot of runny honey? To ensure a donation is made to The Missing Salmon Project, which is funding research into salmon migration at sea, shoppers should use the code GCSALMON at the online check-out at gordoncastlescotland.com…

Releasing a salmon quickly and preserving the memory with a photograph can be tricky. Follow these guidelines to make sure your fish has the best chance of survival. ■ Before fishing a pool, identify where you can land the fish safely. Somewhere without sharp rocks or grit, which can harm the fish’s protective mucous and scales. ■ Play and land fish quickly to avoid exhausting them. ■ Using a net is preferable and keep the fish in the water at all times. Do not drag it up the bank. ■ Use a net with fish-friendly knotless small mesh. ■ Never lift the fish by its tail or gills. Ensure your hands are wet. ■ Use long-nosed forceps to remove the hook quickly and minimise contact with the fish. ■ If…

This striking image shows the River Teviot in a recent 6ft flood colliding with the River Tweed at the world-famous Junction pool. Localised heavy rain falling on newly harvested arable land upstream often picks up soil. However, on the Junction, the Tweed remained clear and six fish were caught, probably taking shelter from the sediment. Gavin Brown, Junction boatman for 31 years, said, “Floods used to last two weeks, but now they’re more up and down. They might last 12 hours, then they’ll hold a beery stain and be gone the next day.”…

IDON’T THINK I’M ALONE IN pondering why we fish. That said I must confess my metaphysical thought process is usually prompted by the two extremes, a truly great day or a truly appalling one, which are probably both imperfect moments at which to start the definitive self-discussion. I’ve dedicated much brain-time (probably too much) in search of “the answer” but never really been satisfied with my conclusions. The great outdoors. Communing with nature. Man versus fish. Hunter-gatherer. The drug of the tug. Matching the hatch. The sublimity of the dry-fly take. An experience shared with others. A break from the everyday. The sheer beauty of fish. Now these are all fine reasons to fish, but none seem to me, even in aggregate, reason enough for what we do for an…

MY BROTHER-IN-LAW Dr Anton Michel had a highly successful scientific research career. He grew up in Newport, Wales and studied pharmacology at the University of Aberdeen, where he met my sister Agnes. Anton’s career took him to posts in Edinburgh, Palo Alto and Cambridge. He produced an anthology of original papers researching the drug intervention of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and pain. Anton grabbed the opportunity to take early retirement; and he and Agnes moved from Cambridge to Stornoway in 2008. Retirement enabled him to concentrate his efforts on fly-fishing and gardening, while still nurturing a number of his ex-colleagues from afar. It was Anton’s ambition to fish all the brown-trout lochs in Lewis and Harris. He would go out on long expeditions, taking in multiple lochs and covering vast…

FLY-FISHING IS A BROAD church and rapidly getting broader as new opportunities for different species, locations and techniques are made available almost every day. If time and resources were unlimited, I’d be up for most of them; sadly, bonefishing on Christmas Island or a two-month Taimen odyssey are luxuries that for me at least would necessitate a diligent ten-year savings plan, or, if I’m impatient, selling a kidney on eBay. Unfortunately, I’m rubbish at saving and I haven’t finished with my kidneys yet. Lucky for me, then, that the biggest thrill in fly-fishing costs peanuts and is on most of our doorsteps: classic loch-style fishing in a big wave. After years of reading about it as a kid, the simplicity and purity of casting a short line while drifting broadside,…

PETER GATHERCOLE is a regular contributor to T&S and has been a professional angling photographer, writer and fly-tyer for more than 40 years. He is the chairman of the Fly Dressers’ Guild. 1 Instead of cutting a wire rib with scissors, which will blunt the blades, wiggle the waste end of the wire back and forth until it fatigues and snaps. 2 Avoid waste when tying a lure or nymph with a marabou tail by using the shorter left-over fibres on the plume to form the fly’s body and thorax. They may be wound or dubbed — either method works well on flies such as Damsels. 3 Keep two pairs of scissors on the tying bench: one with fine tips for delicate and precise snips, the other with robust blades…

Q Can you tell me how I might lose fewer flies when fishing for grayling in winter? Their loss can be as expensive as the fishing itself. Steven Hunter, by e-mail AI understand where you are coming from. The loss of a leader and three shop-bought bead-head flies is probably more than £5. If you’ve tied them, you lose time and effort as well as money. In the early days of bugging, cramming as much weight on a hook to create a plop or a splash became a bragging right. But I felt that I had spoiled a pool when trying to retrieve such flies from a rock or sunken branch, so I started to fish from the top layer of the water downwards (or the middle downwards, at least).…

Smelly anglers While wet wading is especially pleasant in hot weather, proponents should be aware of the scent trail they will leave downstream. When wet wading in North and South Island, New Zealand, last February, my guides were careful to move upstream. Indeed, on the Whakapapa, we crossed two miles above where we started to fish back up. On one pool, my guide pointed out that, if I waded up the pool to reach fish at the neck, the back eddy I was about to enter would carry my scent to the whole pool and all the trout would disappear. Having covered the lower trout, I had to move up and in five minutes they had all melted away, above and below me. Colin Reynolds, Stockport Building the dream I…

Your comments about the Welsh pollution fiasco are not unique (Editor’s letter, November). Here in Scotland, a country that prides itself on tourism and clean wilderness rivers, a country that holds the salmon to be as iconic as the red stag and tartan, we have SEPA, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Now there’s a name to strike fear into the hearts of potential polluters. Aye, that’ll be right. Phrases like an ashtray on a motorbike, a chocolate teapot, or a one-legged man at an arse-kicking competition spring to mind. Setting aside SEPA’s obvious reluctance to regulate the aquaculture industry, I have come across numerous other incidents locally. An engineering contractor was replacing a bridge over a burn that runs into a loch and to make the job easier it dug…

A chance to mix business with pleasure In Cornwall, Rivermead Farm and Cottages is a holiday letting business set on the banks of the River Fowey at Two Waters Foot, near Liskeard. Bodmin is six miles away. The sale is due to retirement. Rivermead Farm Bungalow has two reception rooms, study, conservatory, four bedrooms, bathroom and shower room, with potential for a self-contained annexe. In addition there are two three-bedroom lodges built in 2017; a two-storey detached three-bedroom cottage; and four apartments that can sleep four or two people. The holiday letting cottages were given a four and a four-star Gold Award by Visit England and there is a repeat-recommendation trade of approximately 50 per cent. Outside are a garage, laundry, craft studio (which has development potential) and boules court.…

Upper North Wark, River Tweed A beat with just under a mile of the lower Tweed water, on the world-famous stretch between Coldstream and Kelso. There’s the potential for fish throughout the season — the beat fishes particularly well in mid- to high water. Upper North Wark won the Tweed Trophy for the first spring fish landed off the river on opening day, February 1, 2019. Upper North Wark has ample off-road parking and a well-appointed fishers’ hut with heating, cooking and toilet facilities. The hut is situated at the centre of the beat and all pools are easily accessed. Day tickets start from £45. Contact: Tom Carter, FishPal. Tel: 01573 470 612. Buy tickets online: fishpal.com…

WE WERE GOING TO talk about wading but then I got a bit caught up in trying to distinguish between different sorts of waders. Anyway, here we are now on the riverbank in our lovely new breathable chest waders with felt soles and studs (even though they are extra); and we’re feeling good. The water is good, the weather is good, life is good. It’s time to go fishing. The gillie should tell you where to go. “Gi’ yersel’ in above yon ripple an’ cast a short line pretty square tae begin. Follow the glassy watter doon wi’ time an’ push the line oot a wee bitty as ye go. At the second boil ye’re in tiger country for sure, so tek’ it steady an’ ye may want to just…