Links to Strathearn
I occasionally dabble in a bit of genealogical research, though as my immediate family are all dead barring a few cousins on my Mum’s side, it is not the easiest pursuit. Not helped, it has to be said by some name changing along the way that I wish I knew the reason for.
Truth be known, my surname ( and that of my father and grandfather and great-grandfather) should probably be “Ronaldson”! Anyway, I digress, in doing this research I discovered my great-grandfather, though from Glenfarg lived and worked in a place not that far from me here in Stirling, called Trinity Gask, near Auchterarder. His wife came from Pitcairngreen. You could argue they both lie in the Strathearn area…the valley of the River Earn.
A Path Well Trodden?
I often wonder did my Great Grandfather ever visit the river, maybe even fish for the odd trout or maybe poach a Salmon? I will never know but it kind of felt like following in long trodden footsteps, when yesterday, for the first time, I went and fished the River Earn.
I have always fancied doing this but was put off by this being primarily salmon water, and some rules around wading, which I learned this week, only applies in winter. As I have mentioned a few times in this blog, I have been a little jaded around my fishing recently and really needed to do some new stuff.
Them Fishing Blues
The early morning start on Coulter was something I hadn’t done before, I visited Stenhouse last week with the club ( though that didn’t go brilliantly due to conditions- but it was new water for me), and now this, getting on what to me is another new water and a decent sized river ( which I have been hankering after for a while).
I called Sandy the Ghillie that looks after this stretch of river, on Friday and he very kindly called me back later in the evening, and though I really planned on fishing today ( Sunday) as I wasn’t so far away, he asked if I would mind coming up Saturday so he could “show me the ropes” so to speak.
Sandy and Stan
So I arrived at the fishing hut just after nine and was welcomed by Sandy and we had quite a long chat about the fishing, the water, the history of the beat, the goings on around the sale of the beat…. yours for a cool Half a Million, and who fishes it, and who I might know. Quite a few names came up, some of whom I know read my blog from time to time….your ears were burning lads! One of the names that came up was Stan Moore. I know Stan mainly through facebook but have met him a few times and he was one of our three-man team that fished in the Scottish Clubs last year at Lake of Menteith. While it was maybe an evening he would care to forget he did us a great favour in turning out at short notice and is no mean angler. Just a shame he is trying to get in the England team not the Scottish- we all have our idiosyncracies 🙂 .
I’ll return to Stan in a bit.
Gone Fishing
Once tackled up; I decided to take two rods, one my usual bugging 3# Adams rod, and my 9foot 5# version of the Daiwa New Era to fish dries or wets, being that it was a broader water and would need a little more power to reach over. As the hut is around the boundary of the top quarter and bottom three quarters I opted to head downstream. Sandy said I could take the car but I wanted the exercise and opted to walk. Most of the fishing is done from the south bank and having negotiated gates and a field I was on the river looking for places to fish.
There was one salmon angler who had arrived just after me and he was fishing just down from what I think is called the Machany Water. I wanted to stay out his way and spotting two short fast sections with reasonable depth decided to start on the nearer channel then if possible cross the river and fish the far one too. I had fished one streams breadth out from the bank, with my three flies, two heavy nymphs and a spider on the top dropper, and was part way across the current into my second breadth, when two things happened at once. I felt the line snag up then felt a fish. I lifted and the line wouldn’t budge at all, then I saw and felt a decent Brown Trout of I would reckon about a pound twist itself clear of my fly just below the surface, just before finally the obstruction “gave” and my line came free.
I think the trout had taken one of the upper two flies, my fairly heavy point having jammed in something. Kind of annoying and something I would rue for the rest of the day to be honest. But at the same time encouraging. I was nearing the top of this section when I saw an angler approach and would you believe it? but it was Stan. He was here for practice prior to heading off to the Welsh Dee for I think, the finals of the English team selection process next week. ( I always find it weird that they hold the English qualifiers on a Welsh river).
We had a chat catching up and he offered me some tips for fishing the river and what areas were worth a look. We then both headed across the river the second section I had intended to target as Stan confirmed it could be quite a fruitful spot.
We were both fishing a French Leader though he had two flies and I had three. He fished a much heavier point fly where I had two slightly less dense bugs on my point and middle dropper. We were both ticking bottom, just in different fashions. I had three casts and managed to get snagged up in a tree, and lost all three flies. So I returned to sort out my leader while Stan fished on up catching three or four small Browns or Parr. Once I was back fishing, I had another one following up behind.
We moved on downstream and fished more water that was very reminiscent of the Dee, where he was heading. While it had been pretty overcast and threatening to rain all morning, it was warm and humid and I was fishing in just a tee shirt above my waders. However the sun started to come out now and the heat was pretty intense on the back of your neck, so after leveling the score a bit with 3 or 4 more small trout or parr in as many casts, and then getting a small but respectable Grayling – every fish on the middle dropper, I returned to the bank to put on my jacket as I had rather stupidly forgotten any sun lotion and would fry if I left it any longer.
Stan came over too, he was complaining he had just dropped a good fish. After another chat covering competition fishing, dream places to fish and Bonefishing in Florida and the Caribbean we returned for another go at these Earn fish. Though neither of us managed to find any sizeable fish the honours were about equal as Stan was having about another 30 mins before heading off, and I was going to head downstream to explore the river more.
Exploring
We said our goodbyes and I ventured down the beat. There are lots of pools and croys and it is very much laid out for the Salmon angling which is understandable so a bit featureless in places.
I did find a few spots though where I felt it was worth having a go. I had at least one small brown or Parr in every place I fished including one slightly larger brown Trout than the average of the day, but still not more than half a pound to be honest. A spirited fight these small Brownies put up leaping clear of the water several times.
Wets Weren’t Working
I tried a little upstream fishing with a team of wet spiders and also across and down swinging them but this just wasn’t working today. I reckon by now it was too bright to get fish to venture near the surface. I only saw fish rise twice all day, and in each case, they were in incredibly difficult to reach back eddies behind croys on the far bank. I tried for these but the drag of the water between me and the lie wasn’t easy to avoid.
By later afternoon I reached what looked the last promising section and decided to give this a go before walking back the best part of the two miles to my car.
Right away I had a couple of fish but could feel the odd knock that wasn’t connecting. I had dropped back to two flies earlier on as some of the water was a bit slower and thinner so I decided to restore three flies and get something heavy back on the point as I wasn’t really convinced I was getting right down here.
This paid off right away and in the next 20 minutes I doubled my quota on everything, Small Parr, small Browns, another sub half pound Brown, dropping one more, and yet another Grayling identical to the one earlier in the day.
Summing Up
All good fun, though nothing sizeable, still I really enjoyed the day out. I do want to try to get back up there some evening if I can as there is quite a bit of water I imagine must be good for some dry fly sport if you can see the fish rising. Every fish took the middle fly on a team of three or the top dropper when fishing two, it never seemed to make much difference what that fly was, I had small Frenchie Variants, Pheasant tails and a red collared nymph on throughout the day, all worked.
And Finally
One more observation, I stupidly forgot my wading stick, something I rarely fish rivers without. So I was much more reliant than ever on the grip from Rocktreads and my Vibram Soled Simms wading boots. They never let me down, and I felt sure-footed all day both on the bank and in the water.
