The Art Of The Fly

After slogging away with a 15 foot double hander Spey-casting a 10 weight line for a week I thought that it was about time to get back to normality.

You may not have noticed but it’s been banging it down on and off for the past few weeks and of course the ground should be saturated and the rivers running sooooo high that the banks must be creaking under the weight of the water. Also it’s July and the height of summer so it will of course be scorching, nearly burning my eyes out of their sockets. So it was with no trepidation at all that I set off down the river to revel in the glory of the British summer.

Of course the telegraph pole was left in the sanctity of my home and I dusted off the trusty 2-weight magic wand and set off to the river with a spring in my step and the firm belief that it would be a glorious session.

BANG! Reality bites! This is England! No matter how much rain has fallen the river is still running low and clear with the stones on the bed of the river coated with algae and barely any current except for the faster water. In fact you wouldn’t think that it had rained! Why?
I know that the Wharfe is famous for rising quickly and dropping just as quickly, but I also reckon that those hard-up farmers have too much leeway in running the water off the rivers to irrigate their precious crops. Now I may be an old cynic but I surmise that nobody gives a monkeys arse about rivers and fishermen, except of course fishermen, so we will have to accept that we will always be the poor man to the rest of civilisation – which Is surprising as its the biggest participant sport in the world, but hey ho!

Hot and summer swelters? No chance! It was cold, windy and downright horrible so I was amazed that I actually caught some trout and grayling, but it wasn’t pleasant!

Perhaps I should give up and just fish in the hot Gulf of Mexico and Bahamas for a week a year!

Dunno – I will sleep on it!

Friday came and it turned out to be the last day. Paul had to leave early afternoon and he was soon followed by David leaving me all by my lonesome. Tomorrow is supposed to be the High Beats but as the water is so low, as I’m left on my lonesome and as I don’t want to wreck the car driving into the middle of nowhere I shall depart for sunny Skipton early tomorrow morning.

Today has been the brightest and warmest day of them all, which is amazing following Wednesday when the heavens opened. The river has risen 4 feet and then in 2 days dropped 5 leaving it vey low but very fishable.

This morning I had a plan for 5 fish each before the end of the day as I suspected that it would fish well. As reported earlier I was on the river for 6 am and (I am very pleased to say) did (by the end of the day) manage my 5, snagging the last 3lb grilse from the ‘saddle’ pool at 8pm before the invasion of the deadly Scottish midgies. All in all a good day, 4 grilse in total varying between 2 and 4 pound, with a good 6 pound salmon, making 8 fish in total for the week – not great but not bad. David managed 1 salmon and Paul didn’t get a fish.

Getting up early seems to pay off here as this morning I had my first fish at 7:15, second at 7:30 and third at 7:45, also by 8 I had another 3 takes but failed to hook them.

So – here I am with a glass of red wine completing the Findhorn blog. Tomorrow morning I will have a shower and try to be on the road by 6, with a vague hope to be home by 12.

Would I return to the Findhorn? To be honest I’m not sure. It’s been a strange week and it hasn’t exactly fished well but it has potential. What hasn’t really turned me on is that the majority of the fish are grilse with very few real salmon and no chance of hitting a big fish. The midges are the worst thing in the world and trash any enjoyment when they are out, whilst breeze, rain and cold are blessed as effectively they put the midges down. To say there’s almost 6 miles of river there are few spots with real fish potential, and the higher beats really need to be more accessible with some of the tracks downright dangerous. However, there are fish in the river, the lodge is superb and the countryside is spectacular. The company was excellent and therefore it should be spot on. But something still nags that its not right. I shall have to sleep on it though as regards next year.

9 o’clock and its time to put this down and tuck into the wine. From the Findhorn it’s goodnight and goodbye.

It’s 5:41 on Friday morning and there’s only today and tomorrow left before I head back to Skipton. The fishing here on the Findhorn is divided up into 3 large beats each about 2 miles long. They have strange names which are probably meaningful to the local history and geography but we call them Upper, Middle and Lower. Allegedly the lower beat fishes best at low water, and its the lower beat that we are due to fish today. Normally I would be already out fishing just outside the lodge which is next to the bridge pool at the Middle beat, but we aren’t allowed as its not our beat today, therefore I have a little lie in which enables me to write this.

Its a strange thing but confidence breeds success, and I was very confident yesterday morning and the end result was 2 salmon banked, 1 lost and numerous wild Brown Trout. Today however I don’t have any warm glowing feeling about it but we shall have to wait and see. Saturday is the last day and is the Upper beat. If today brings few or no fish I may not be completely inclined to even fish the last day, but as I said we shall have to wait and see.

It’s been some time since I’ve been salmon fishing with my usual fishing buddy Johnny Beerling, and it will be some time again yet as JB has been rather laid up this week, in fact he’s currently laid up in Leeds General Infirmary having just been under the surgeons knife having no less that a Quadruple Heart Bypass. Now JB never does anything by half measures and I suppose that I’m surprised that he has not gone for the complete heart transplant, but he must be currently very uncomfortable and feeling sorry for himself. Although this place has no mobile phone signal I drove out on Wednesday until I could get one and rang Sue, Johns wife. Although he’s in Intensive Care he’s fine and they normally would be looking to send him home a week after the Op. I wouldn’t like to be Sue then as I bet that he will be as frustrated as hell until he can get around and do the things that he wants to do again. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got a skiing trip pencilled in for later this year, and undoubtedly he will be planning a lecture cruise. When I get back to civilisation I will be trying to get over to LGI but may not make it until he’s home. The thought’s there though. So get well soon JB and perhaps next year you will be launching the salmon rod again.

6:00 now. Probably time to get up. An early breakfast and then perhaps away. We shall see. No less than 6 fish today is a failure.

We reckoned that the fish may make an appearance after yesterdays rain, and we were nearly right. The fact is that after about 11 am not a fish showed it’s face, but before then we had a bit ofq a bumper session.

I was on the river at 5:30 am, and by 7 (breakfast) had caught a small salmon of about 2 pounds. After breakfast, the same stretch brought me a fine 8 pound fish, 4 trout and the loss of another good salmon as it hit the fly but didn’t take it properly. I reckon that I could have had more but instead put Paul on the beat as he hasn’t yet had a fish. Meanwhile below the bridge David managed to hook and lose a big fish, and he never had another bite all day.

It’s 11:20 pm as I write this and I am very tired having fished constantly all day. I reckon if you are here to fish then fish – otherwise don’t pretend. Thankfully David and Rob are also here to fish so I am at last with like minded people.

Tomorrow is the penultimate day, fishing the lower beat, – hopefully the fish will be more obliging.

We never got back on to the river on Wednesday. We estimated that over the 10 hours of spate somewhere near 18 billion gallons of extra water flowed down the river and into the sea. If just one of those rivers could be tapped It would provide water for all of Scotland and possibly England and Wales too.

Truly an amazing sight to watch the water rise by about four feet in the space of a couple of hours.

2:30 and kicking our heels back at the lodge. We needed some rain to get the fish running and we now have a severe weather warning in Perthshire with localised flooding. Guess where we are? Spot on! As a result we managed 3 hours this morning at the top beat where I had a bonny trout and the faint suspicion of a salmon pulling the fly …… before we were washed off.

The river must have risen 2-3 feet, it looks to be stabilising although it’s still raining hard so we hope that it stops and starts to fall. If so we will have a bash this evening – but I’m not holding my breath as the forecast was for it to stop at about 8 this evening.

So we have had a great lunch again courtesy of Paul and this evening we are planning on yesterdays salmon slowly baked with lemon, white wine and garlic. Just because we are in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean that we have to slum it. The lodge is very nice and now that we have finally mastered the log burner it’s more than comfortable. We have plenty of food and drink so we may well have another evening of light banter and a wee dram!

For the techies amongst us there is no internet nor mobile phone signal here at the lodge, which is nice in one way but not in another. This afternoon I will venture out in the car to try to pick up a phone signal and call home like ET. Whether anybody will be in or not is a moot point but I will try after 4 when school has finished.

I will also endeavour to try to take some photos over the next few days. It’s delightful scenery but I’m not here to wander lonely as a cloud but fish instead. Therefore the camera may stay in the bag, but we shall have to see.

Will we get out again tonight? Judging from the torrent I would say not. However as this is Part 1 I will have to hold onto Part 2 for now. It may be a short posting though!

Tuesday came and went in a flurry of rain and misdirected expectation. 2 fish fell to the rods, a 8 pound reddish fish to David and a 4 pound grilse to myself. Not great by any stretch of the imagination but T least it’s fish.

The river is sectioned off into 3 big beats each about 2 miles long. Tuesday was the lower beat which held some great runs and pools, whereas on Monday it was the middle beat which to be fair only had a couple of real pools when the water is so low.

On Tuesday however the rain started to come and the river rose about 4 inches. Ordinarily that should get the fish running, and we saw a a few – but they weren’t exactly obliging. Today however (I am writing this early Wednesday morning) it is raining hard and therefore suits the top beat which we are fishing today.

So far 2 days and 2 fish.

Strange how things work out.
I’ve not fished any of these really northern Scottish a salmon rivers before, up here near Inverness I have been told that the Findhorn is a spate river. Now I thought that meant that when it rained the fish would run and we would have a bonanza of big hungry silver salmon. Yesterday we arrived and it was blowing a gale – probably the worst conditions that you could imagine. Good job that there’s no salmon fishing on Sundays – so I watched a really boring Open Championship and awaited Monday.

The ghillie arrived and my expectations were dashed immediately – the Findhorn Is a grilse river – the biggest fish on offer will probably be 6-8 pounds – not exactly what I imagined – so the tube flies went back into storage, the 15 foot rod was packed away and I fished with the Sage 10 weight and the smallest salmon flies that I had. – not amused really. Will I come back? Probably not but that depends on the what has happened at the end of the week.
Today- lost one salmon and brushed against another – not exactly bursting the nets.
Tuesday looms and it’s rained – will we catch tomorrow on the lower beat?

Not sure whether I care!

The Findhorn – what do I know about it? Very little except that it’s in the Highlands, it’s mouth is near to the Moray Firth, and that it could be very wet, very windy or roasting hot.
A week ago there was no water and the salmon were nowhere to be seen. Now it’s a different story as it’s been very very wet and the fish should be running …….

…… Has anybody told them? I shall just have to find out. Tomorrow I will have a 6-hour 340 mile drive so I shall have an early start. The tackle is loaded but I may still have to pop in to Norris on the way up (it’s like a magnet) for sone hooks and tubing. What will the week bring? Midges? Fish?

There may be no signal at all up there in the lodge – so I will post the blog entries and load them when I can.

See you in a week!

Irrespective of the dodgy weather, myself and Johnny B dared to go to the river yesterday and try to tempt some of the balmy trutta out of the trickle of water that some people call the river Wharfe. I didn’t rate our chances as there has been no rain since 2001 (or at least it feels Iike it) but it’s always nice to get down there and even better with John, so off we went expecting to just chill out and waste a few hours.

To those of you that don’t know, JB used to be controller of Radio 1 back in the heady days of Noel, DLT, Kenny Everett etc so he’s not unaccustomed to the glare of the spotlights and the smell of greasepaint. I reckon that once in showbiz always in showbiz, but surely the fish don’t know of John’s pedigree do they. Or do they?

A strange late afternoon, at one point we went back to the car expecting a deluge, but none came, and as it turned out it was a very pleasant summers evening, not too hot, not too windy, just right.

On a good day I can usually catch, but it was tough as I reckon that the fish are just hunkering down hiding from the sun and picking off the odd fly as and when, but I managed to raise 2 and hook one whereas JB was having a tough time but had raised one.

Then we had the rain break that never happened and as a result we moved downstream. Straight away John starting raising fish but couldn’t hook one for toffee (on the other hand I was fishing like a blind one-armed amateur and couldn’t touch a fish).

That’s where showbiz being in your blood makes a difference. I swear to God we could have thrashed the water for hours, but then along came a couple walking along the river bank. John immediately started to look different, his casting became almost poetic and the fly drifting down the river was akin to the Royal Yacht as it gently and effortlessly floated downstream. It was like one of those TV programmes where we expectantly awaited the gentle sip of the trout taking the fly. Sure enough as the couple neared us it happened, right on queue, the Royal Yacht was scuttled by the fish and John gently raised his rod into a fine fighting brown trout. The camera slowly panned back to show the couple watching and gently applauding as John made a real meal of playing it in front of the virtual camera before finally netting it.

End of chapter 1. The couple moved off and John flogged the water again turning it in to a foam with as much chance of catching a fish as, well me to be honest. We had a laugh as I made it clear that he was a complete show-off, which John took in his stride. Until once again another couple chanced by. Again the elegant casting started again, the smell of the greasepaint was wafting through the air and the gentle snap of the clapper-board could be heard in the distance. Once again the camera rolled and again the Royal Yacht was sipped off the surface as we all held our breath. Again the gentle applause of the audience watching from the bank could be heard as John once again fought the tireless trout to the net to capture Chapter 2 in a single take.

That’s John you see, loves the audience and the trout know it. It’s in the blood you know!

Alas I have never been in showbiz so I could not hope to emulate the loved and famous. Perhaps I should try harder, or perhaps I should accept that I’m just a lost cause whereas John? ‘Nuff said.