The Art Of The Fly

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!

I’m just returning from a business trip to Edinburgh and rather than sweat away in the car I took the lazy route and used the chuffa train.
I didn’t realise it when I booked the tickets (and if I’d have put half a mind to thinking) but the choo-choo from Leeds to Edinburgh travels up the East Coast and I have just been lucky enough to zip over the Berwick Bridge.

Now I’ve seen rivers before and it’s no surprise that the mouth of the river where it meets the sea is always impressive, but this one is just a wee bit special as it’s the mouth of the mighty Tweed.
Berwick looks beautiful and without risking a stoning for being predictable it seems very quaint and sereen. It’s a lovely day and as the train passed over I (of course) looked down and thought of the many thousands of salmon that have made their way from there at the mouth of the river up to their spawning grounds.
It’s a really humbling and exciting thought that nature in it simplicity can make a small Scottish town such an important place in the world. Even as the train crossed the bridge there must have been fish running. – Rather than me want to get the gear out and tie a tube on it just made me feel that I had done something very special.

Another thing that it made me realise is that netting runs the big risk of decimating the migratory run – it’s so easy to bottle the fish up and snare the whole damned lot before they get anywhere near the river.

So there you have it. My first brush with salmon in 2010. And not a fishing rod in sight!

By the way – also saw Lindisfarne for the first time. Looked good too – but not as special as Berwick-On-Tweed!

Strange how things make me want to write – must be some kind of nutter I suppose.