I like to head up into the hills and fish the wee burn a couple of times a year, if I can. The fish on the whole are tiddlers but its nice getting off the beaten track, rarely if ever do I see another individual when out on the moors that transport the burn to the bigger river that flows downstream and just occasionally something a bit bigger takes your fly.
The wee pool we found a few years back that I felt I knew my whole life- yeah weird!
I have to admit to a strange attachment to the burn which I will explain now. I am not native to this locality, being brought up in Musselburgh and fishing the Esk as a youth. The burn is pretty well known to the locals who fished as kids round these parts. I only discovered it in passing when I spotted it while going home from fishing elsewhere, and suggesting to my Mrs there might be a nice walk in the hills that followed the course of the burn, one Bank Holiday day off, and we set off with the dog and a fly rod in tow. That day I got about half a dozen fish ranging from tiddlers to fish about 6 or 7”. But it was on this walk that I came across a wee spot and it was like I had known it all my life.
When I was a kid I used to have a couple of recurrent dreams. They came again and again and I became very familiar with them, though had utterly no idea about any meaning in them. One was a bit “dark” and involved me being on an airliner- I don’t actually recall anyone else being on it, and it was just flying along at night with the cabin lights on. At this point in time I had not ever been on a plane so where it all came from I have no idea- maybe off the TV. I can still picture the scene in my minds-eye to this day though the dream has long since stopped. The scene though then changed to me being in a graveyard, looking up and seeing the jet flying very high overhead. A bit grim, dark but that was it in a nutshell, I wasn’t scared by it it was just the dream that came over and over again while I was still pretty young, it must’ve stopped when I was 11 or 12. In the other recurrent dream I was sat beside a wee pool in the countryside somewhere in a truly idyllic spot, and it seemed like Nirvana. The water bubbled over a wee water fall into the pool, and flowed away down the stream and there was low grass all around, and the sun was shining. I didn’t fish at that age and I don’t recall there being any fishing involved in the dream, but in my minds-eye it was my vision of what a wild burn in the country should look like. So when we walked the burn that Bank Holiday and came across the first deep pool with a wee waterfall into it and low grass all bathed in sunshine and sheltered by a low dry stane dyke, it was like I had known the spot all my life, and I almost feel obliged to make the pilgrimage there a couple of times a year if I can.
The waterfall at the top of the burn. I got a pull in the pool but no fish
It’s high in the hills and so you need to pick your day, a slight breeze at ground level can translate into a gale up there. The fish too can be very, very fickle. On a good day ( usually a sunny and still one peculiarly, you could offer the fish almost any dry fly in your box and they will hammer it with gusto. Mostly in the pools for the better fish but there are tiddlers behind every rock on the burn’s twisting route downhill. But on a grey day the fish can literally vanish and you won’t get so much as a look. Dry or Nymph goes untouched. Turn up any stone on the burn and its covered in freshwater life, nymphs of all varieties and caddis. Clearly the fish don’t go hungry.
Not sure why this was here on the edge of a moor in some marsh grass, but clearly plated by someone and I suspect maybe some sort of memorial
So yesterday I decided if I was to get up there at all this year it had to be the day to go, it was still and warm but very, very grey. I started at the top near where I leave the car and had a knock on my first cast with my Tenkara rod, in the deep pool under a waterfall, but it didn’t come again. As I headed down and away from the falls though I came across an odd thing, someone had planted a garden plant, still with its name card in amongst the long grass. It really stood out on the harsh marshy ground. I suspect its some sort of memorial to a passed friend or relative.
Moving downstream though the sky remained a sullen grey and there was a bit of a breeze though not strong. The first pool, the one from my dream, that I look forward to fishing so much was quiet, I thought I seen a fish rise just as I rounded the corner of the wall, but it never rose again. Or maybe it had just been one of the numerous Daddy Longlegs, dibbling the surface. I fished a nymph and a wet fly through it but never seen any sign there was a fish there. There were plenty flies around but the fish weren’t even taking them but I popped on a silly large klinkhamer with a nymph below and first cast a tiddler had a go at the dry though it was probably too big to get it in its mouth!
The deer that bolted from behind the wall popped it head up in the long grass to observe me from a distance
The deer soon tired of watching and bolted for the high ground
As I worked my way down stream to the next favoured spot a deer shot out from behind the wall that fringes the burn and bolted to the hill behind. I tried to get a snap shot of it with my long lens but still had it set to long exposure mode from some pics I was taking earlier and the deer vanished behind a low mound. I took a guess where it might reappear and right enough I could just make out its head watching me through the long grass before it louped off over the will behind. The next pool was barely recognisable to me, there seem to be major forestry works going on in the estate behind the burn and it’s been stripped bare.
I barely knew where I was, a real shame for such a secluded spot, now it seems like a barren hill. This pool too showed no signs of life and nothing moved in the best lies. I tried again in some boulder water below where usually casting is a bit treacherous due to the trees but now is wide open. Nothing showed. I had taken quite a while to get here as my feet are still sore and I was taking regular stops on the way down, I decided there wasn’t much to be gained heading further, except for a longer walk back uphill to the car.
The commercial forestry is being harvested leaving the hillside looking bare and the burn unsheltered
A pristine wild brown trout took my CDC Olive at last knockings and acquitted itself well on my wee Tenkara rod
I could not resist another cast at the dream pool on the way back, though the rain started to spit. A wee quill CDC dry was put on and I fished across and down with the Tenkara rod. A few casts and I got the fly where I wanted it when an obliging Trout hammered the fly and put a nice bend in the Japanese fishing rod. Not huge but not the smallest of the fish that live here either, but wild as they come, the hook didn’t even seem to be caught on the fish at all, it lifted out its mouth.
Looking down on the high falls, it was midge city as they ate me alive
As I made my way back uphill I had to stop to rest the feet again and take a few pics of another waterfall from directly above. The wind had dropped and I was sweating with walking uphill. The Scottish midges descended on me like a swarm of angry bees. I have heard the stories of those nut jobs who allow themselves to be stung by bees to “cure” arthritis. If midge bites had the same effect I would have a lifetimes cure by the time I reached the car. They bit me inside my mouth even, and my top lip swelled up! I was able to protect most of my face with my anglers buff and my jacket hood but my hands and round my eyes were all lumps and blotches from the wee buggers.
So not the best fishing day but this year pilgrimage has been completed and I am content.
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