Right place, right time, right equipment, right tactics = Right result

 

It doesn’t matter if you are in the lochs of Sutherland or the rivers of West Wales you need to get these fundamentals aligned for the best possible chance to catch fish. It dawned on me recently after a very tiring day and you reluctantly admit this must be the final cast.  I had a big smile on my face and felt somehow energised after the days success and this is why.

I had spent the morning on the Cothi a tributary of the Tywi in South Wales and had an absolutely cracking day and my first salmon on the Cothi and my first on the Llandeilo AA waters since 1990. I was buzzing and wondering why the day had gone so smoothly and then I realised that the Jim Coates article in the June issue of Trout & Salmon had been the foundation for today’s equipment and tactics.

I had made notes and highlighted comments with ticks on areas that I could utilise. These included the set up for May and floating lines, poly leaders, tippet length and size of fly.  The Cothi is very much a stream up at Brechfa but there are deep pools and these need to be carefully fished as Jim explained you need to watch where the fly is going and track its path through the tight runs.

I had opted for my Aleka 9ft 9# to cope with the big fish in such a small river and a light reel with a weight #8 floating line. I had a 5ft clear hover poly leader as the water had risen a bit with the fresh water over the past few days and felt confident with only a 5ft 12lb leader as it gave me great control of the fly in the water.

In 2020 I had caught all my sewin on Teife terrors in the original tying design by Moc Morgan but today I was trying out a size 12 Tywi Terror designed and tied by my brother Peter. His own version with a longer wing and some yellow tied within the black.

As Jim indicates in his article you need to focus on each of the pools as you come upon them and break down the casts to cover all the likely hot spots. I liked the cricket comparison of tempting the batsmen out of their wicket, so tempting the fish out of their rest areas was today’s tactics and this is exactly how it played out. A large fish came out of the deep and intercepted the fly as it swung passed high in the water only 6 inches below the surface. I could hardly believe it! Such a large fish attracted by such a small fly, high in the water.

Well after a twenty-minute fight in a very tight area and able to see the whole battle in such clear water a 10 ½ lb fresh run salmon was brought to the bank. Using my trout net that had no handle and could only just cope with the 75cm fish, it was brought onto the rocky shallows and unhooked in the small puddles. He was then returned after he was rested further in the shallows and strongly swam his way up to the next pool.

I had selected the place and the Cothi pools were full of water, the timings came from some rain earlier in the week and it was a date in my busy golfing calendar. The tactics were drawn from Jim’s advice and Peter’s fly both giving me the confidence to trick my first salmon into the net on the Cothi.  

Fast forward about 4 weeks and we are in Forsinard for a two week Sutherland trouting holiday. We were staying at the new holiday let Riverside Cottage at the junction of the Halladale and the track up to the South West Halladale trout lochs (Sletill, Leir etc). We had selected and booked our beats for the fortnight so the timings were set as long as the Team got out of bed each morning.

We had been visiting for over 4 years so finding the right place does take some research and a lot of long walks to check out the huge number of lochs throughout the Forsinard Flyfishers Club waters. We had fished most of the lochs but this year had a few odd ones to tick off including a couple missed out because of Tyre-gate when I had 3 punctures in one morning. (This was after petrol-gate when I had to drive to Thurso via Loch More as not enough diesel to get back to Melvich!)

A new loch was located after a longish drive and we eventually found the parking spot after some poor map reading (we had no map just my OS on phone). The midges found us easy enough as we walked to the boat but a light wind relieved us from their blood sucking biting. The boat was leaking so all three of us would be bank fishing which we were all happy to do as it was accessible on all banks.

After fishing in Sutherland for 49 years you think we would know the tactics required and have the best equipment possible but we learn new tricks each year and always keen to try new ideas. I have mentioned in previous articles that the same flies used in 1973 are still the best flies today in the 2020’s. But the sedgehog  / stimulator patterns that have been developed over the last 15 years are proving to be great patterns to cover all sorts of match the hatch situations.

Pete and MC took the south bank with their 5 & 6# weight set ups while I went alone up the north bank using my 10ft Greys 7# after a broken Greys 6 piece incident the previous week. 

The light wind was from the west so everyone was happy. After about an hour I sensed that the loch was changing, the wind was up a bit, the weather warmer and I was seeing and hearing the odd fish rising. Then within ten minutes the loch exploded with fly life I have only ever seen this in May on the shores of Sheelin with mayfly appearing all of a sudden and then dancing in clouds on the islands that are dotted across the loch. Hundreds of flies were on the surface near the bank coming to life and lifting off the surface.

A large trout was gorging on these flies below the surface about 25ft out from the bank. He barely broke the surface but was moving left and right making the most of the hatch. I tried to match the hatch with 3 options within ten minutes but with no success. I then tried a sedgehog variant that Pete had made for me and after a quick spray of Leeda dry fly, I cast it out infront of the moving trout. For the first time he broke the surface and all his body appeared taking the fly supposedly before crashing back down like some Orca taking a seal off the surface. But he missed the fly completely and never took a liking to it again. Frustrated I ended up taking photos of the fly life and had my lunch to calm down.

Meanwhile MC and Peter were on the west shore drinking whisky and had seen nothing all morning. I was watching them for a while and noticed Peter was on the move but in that instant I saw a huge trout completely leave the water about 60 yards out and seemed to be heading to the north west corner. Peter had seen a big section of calm water in a bay at this NW area, he likes calm water and looks out for them everywhere and has tempted some big fish out of these calm areas with tweaked dry flies (sedgehogs) in the past.

Peter’s comment afterwards “ In fifty years of fishing in Scotland lochs I have never experienced anything like the feeding frenzie of 5 to 8 very large trout in just one area” All I heard was a cry of help or was it an appeal for some netting assistance? Any way it was just too far away but I headed over and hoped that he could cope with the monster he apparently had on the end of his line. By the time I got to the bay he had the 4lb 1oz trophy fish in the net and I obliged with some photos before he quickly returned the trout in good health to the water.

He explained what unusual phenomenon he had experienced and we could still see big trout sipping their way around the bay. Peter tried again and for sure a fish came again in a similar spot  but he missed it for some reason or other but frankly his nerves were a wreck and timings can be affected in such circumstances.

After watching the bay for a while, it calmed down and there was the odd rise but we felt the hatch had finished or we had just spooked the other fish. I had still an idea that the big fish I had seen earlier may be on a tack up to this bay and back to the deep where I had seen him previously. So, I persisted in casting as far as I could out in this southerly direction and keeping my eyes peeled for any movement. My Redington reel with my 7# Rio gold line were working well in tandem with the 10ft rod and casting like a dream.

After ten minutes I saw movement, mainly under the surface but the occasional head appeared and was sipping the failed fliers that were within the surface film. I cast out to about six foot in front of his path and within an instant he crashed upon it and I struck as he turned down wards. We think that barbless flies are better at directly hooking fish and this was proven here as “fish on” was called out. He played out magnificently taking huge amounts of line to the middle of the loch and then jumping before chasing back directly to me.  We had seen his full size a couple of time during his aerobatic display and knew we had another trophy fish on our hands. After ten minutes he was tired enough to bring him gently to the net and Peter was at hand to scoop him out of the water. Using my recently purchased McLeans weigh net he hit the scales at 4lb 8oz and photos were taken while we unhooked the fly and he went straight back to protect his wellbeing.

The tactics we had used had reaped us the rewards of two fish in under twenty minutes both over the 4lb mark. This result is exactly what we had been looking for during the holiday, good sized fish that can be hunted down giving us such memorable experiences. It is not easy one has to work hard: 1. To get to such fish. 2. To tempt them to take the fly. 3. Secure a solid hook. 4. Then playing them successfully to the net.  

 

Comments:

I loved the article I read in the Hatch blog from the USA yesterday Tom describes an evening out fishing the Hex. But his final words: “If you’re standing in the right place at the right time, you might get a shot at one of the biggest trout in the river. And if you’re 100 yards away in either direction, you might get diddly-squat.”  (Tom Davis, Hatch, Results from the night game)

Our dear friend Andrew Lawlan who fished these waters as a youngster with his Father has always stated to us that it’s all about “Right time Right place” and he should know with some cracking trout from the Scourie beats.

-----------------------------------------

Further thoughts for the future:

• ·        It was warmer this year but is 1^st week in June still too early this far North?
• ·        We had a lot of blank days between us on some notably difficult beats, why? My thoughts are that we are not varying our tactics enough to get to the “Right Tactics” for the conditions and that we need to be using more variety.
• ·        Taking cider as a substitute for water on long walks, classic “school boy error”  by Graham   
• ·        Take less rods but always take a spare on the hill between you, maybe six piece 8#? Possibly too late for this as just bought an ex-demo Guidline Stoked single handle 9ft 4 piece 8#  
• ·        Try different locations over the two weeks as the weather in Dunnet or in the Kyle of Tongue can vary from the Halladale. Also more variety will give a better experiences eg St Johns loch, Watten, Duck loch or Durness limestone lochs.

Long term thought: We need a week in Forsnard and a few days in three other locations  to make sure we are at the right place at the right time.

Lifetime thought: Keep trying new tactics through experience and wisdom from others.

PS: STOP BUYING MORE EQUIPMENT!!