We're pleased to have Allan Liddle back this month. He takes a look back at his 2014 season.
Now that we’ve reached the midway point to our wild trout close season what better time to reflect on the season past and look forward to what’s just a few weeks away.
A few weeks of waiting, weather watching, river bank wandering (looking for the first signs of life) and counting down the days until that magical date of March 15th rolls round again. Ok magical up here north of the border, I know other places hold different season dates for wild trout, but up here in Scotland it's March 15th to October 6th, a time when the world is right and everything’s possible.
Christmas for me generally finds me with a dram or two flicking through the pictures from the season(s) past, a good time to reflect on the successes and failures from the year and plan out the one about to come. OS maps spread about the floor, notes taken, books read and, given it’s the holidays, a few drams to help keep the whole process running smoothly. Amazing the plans and places you set yourself up for after a few drops of the ‘Water of Life.’
So how was 2014 for me? I could pick out a ton of details but that would most likely simply bore the arse off you all, so how about I pick out one or two highlights from each month and suggest you guys do the same when you run through your own season just past reflections. This helps you focus on what’s been and if you guys, like I do, take loads of photos it also helps to cut out the ‘here’s another fish’ scenario. After all retrospective reflection is more than half the enjoyment of fishing is it not?
March 2014 was a surprisingly mild month up in these parts, which had the bonus of allowing me to search for surface feeding fish right from opening day, and it would be easy to pick that as the month’s highlight, but instead I’m going to opt for something that happened a week or so later. Where I live means I’m lucky to be close at hand to a number of ‘Trophy Trout’ venues, Rivers Deveron and Don are both within an hour (Deveron a mere twenty five minutes) and there’s a couple of quality lochs in the same timescale one of which, Loch Park I’ve waxed lyrical in these pages before.
However it was the capture of my season's first Trophy (wild trout over three pounds) that was easily the highlight of the month. Supping down LDOs this fish was sitting in a fairly easy lie, the remarkable thing here was the fact I’d walked past it twice without it showing and had taken a smaller fish just a few yards away about half an hour before, not to mention the disturbance made at that time by my fishing companions Mac 'n' Roni, my two mad Labrador dogs, the biggest of which thinks he’s helping by wading in alongside me almost every time I enter the water.
Anyway despite the proceedings I managed to tempt this fish with my all time favourite: an olive DHE, then a quick weighing and photo session before carefully returning. No big fish are harmed in the making of my season and yes I do have multiple caught fish, proven by the times I’ve been broken and got my fly back a week or so later, or when examining for the tell tale sign of a hook recently removed. Comparing photos of the fish is also a bit of a giveaway if not an exact science.
Anyway April proved to be another fruitful month, the highlight coming midway through when I was lucky enough to experience an astonishing Olive Upright and March Brown hatch that had the fish in a feeding frenzy. If you covered it you got it, or so it seemed in an amazing three hour spell that got me thinking I could do no wrong. However as my next outing was on the Tweed in a rapidly rising river during a Scottish National League heat where I blanked (two fish lost) I was firmly brought back down to earth.
May and things were getting hard due to the fact the North East of Scotland hadn’t had any significant rainfall for weeks (since before the start of the season to be exact). Suppressed water levels equal suppressed fly hatches and this was certainly the case on our rivers, but on the lochs (Park especially) the settled weather resulted in some unbelievable buzzer hatches and the resulting rises had to be seen to be believed. I’m not going to pick out a big catch, or the capture of a rod bending trout, but a wee gathering of likeminded trout bums to the area and to hear them wax lyrical about the amazing fishing they had was the highlight for me, some of them were still going on about it on our last gathering in September.
June and a chance to visit a place I’d always wanted to fish, Fionn Loch in Gairloch, scene of Osgood MacKenzie’s book ‘One Hundred Years in the Highlands. Stunningly beautiful, rugged, wild and fish laden this trip didn’t disappoint, in fact not only did Fionn produce but the surrounding satellite lochs weren’t too shabby either. Weather was mostly settled which meant I could even chase the fish with my favourite method, dries pitching at cruising fish or at one of the thousands of rocks strewn throughout the loch, this was a three day visit that seemed to pass in three minutes. Miles covered not just in the boat, but by foot as well, but with the fishing so good it all seemed effortless.
A family trip across the Pentland Firth to my most favourite of places, Orkney, was easily the best fishing bit of July. Again written about before I simply can’t say enough about this magical place and it’s without fear of contradiction I say, if you’re a trout angler you simply have to visit here. Working between family trips and the odd snatched couple of hours is a hard balance to get right, however the holiday does allow for me to get a couple of days afloat on my all time favourite water, Harray Loch and chasing fish with big bush ‘Hog’s’ in big waves amongst the rocks and skerries this water’s famed for lives long in the mind of any who experience it. Yup not for the faint hearted taking a boat into water often inches deep, but to see the fish coming through those waves after your fly is something we all long for, and this trip didn’t disappoint. Next year’s booked already.
After about twenty odd years of trying I finally managed to qualify for Scotland and fished in the inaugural Five Nations which was the highlight for August. Proud as punch I spent a week based in Stirling practicing and finally competing in the event with mixed results. Frustrating, rewarding and certainly an experience I’ll not forget in a while, new friends made and older ones reacquainted, fished as hard as I could and came home wiser, better and completely knackered, although the Saturday end of competition Après Fish Karaoke in the local pub where I may or may not have hogged the mic might have had a bit to do with the tiredness I felt on the way home.
Mixed feelings ran through the highlight for September where the wee fishing group of troot bums gathered on our season’s end bash cantered around the remote but fantastic Crask Inn in central Sutherland. A place we’ve been visiting since the millennium year this year marked the retirement of hosts Mike and Kai Geldard who are taking a well deserved change of pace (not that life’s very fast at the Crask) and opting to concentrate on a wee croft they’ll share with their son in nearby Rogart.
Mike and Kai have looked after us well over all these years and the food we’ve enjoyed and service we’ve received has been second to none, a real home from home and a place you experience, not simply visit. The fishing this year was good, a ten to twelve mile hike to some remote and not too often visited hill lochs pretty memorable, especially as once again dries were the favoured method, but this trip will always be remembered as being the time Mike and Kai retired.
And that was just about it, save a couple of snatched outings in October with possibly the last one back on the Deveron where the whole season had started a mere six months previous. Fishing was slow but just to be out with those two mad mutts once more was enough to send this angler home with a big happy smile.
So, as you read this, the OS maps will be spread about the floor, drams will be getting sunk, notes, names and grid references taken, flies discussed and plans made for it’ll all come around before you know it and we start all over again. I for one simply can’t wait.
Contact Details:
River Deveron; Frank Henderson Turriff Trophies and Tackle will point you to the best water available as well as give you the latest on what’s been happening. You can visit Frank’s website at www.fishingthedeveron.co.uk
River Don; Aberdeen and District Angling Association have some excellent water and miles of it on this enigmatic river. Visit their website for full details www.adaasales.co.uk where you can even buy your permits online as well as get the latest on the river. There’s also Mike Barrio's excellent website which gives the latest on the river throughout Aberdeen and other beats. www.fishingthefly.co.uk
Letterewe Estate; Ardlair Lodge isn’t cheap at around £2000 plus VAT per week, but given it sleeps ten (one double bed though) and it includes all your fishing, boat hire, engines and fuel it’s actually very good value and something I’d urge you all to consider. www.letterewe-estate.com
www.orkneytroutfishing.co.uk is the site for the Orkney Trout Fishing Association where the latest catches and flies are on show as well as details on all their fishing. You can also pay your visitor's membership here which is a mere £20 per season, a small price to pay to help the Association conserve and enhance the fantastic fishing on offer here.
Loch Park offers boat fishing on a pristine but challenging water and also allow anglers to pay a smaller fee to use their own float tubes. The centre offers many activities for people of all abilities and you can get more information by checking out their website www.lochpark.co.uk Accommodation is also available through the centre in their excellent nearby bunkhouse. Alternatively if you want a more stylish stay then Iain and Betty Sharp run the nearby Castleview B&B in Dufftown (www.castleviewdufftown.com) Iain’s also a keen trout angler and fishes Park as often as he can.
The Crask Inn also hasn’t a website as yet, however Mike and Kai are still busy taking bookings and running the Inn until a new owner comes along (who knows we might get another September stay out of them yet). As well as plentiful hill loch fishing, there’s also the River Tirry, a small spate stream that runs directly past the Inn and can be good with enough water. You can make a booking by contacting the Inn at Crask Inn, Lairg, Sutherland, IV27 4AB. 01549 411241.
And that’s about it, there’s so much more I could say, but then that wouldn’t leave me much to write about next time.
See more from Allan at the most excellent Scottish Anglers