Sutherland Adventure Part four: Clashfern, the weather turns

After Wednesdays wet day, I was grateful for the Scourie Hotel having a drying room that got all my sodden gear dry over night. A consideration if you ever plan on coming up here to have a go for these wild trout in rugged and beautiful surroundings. You won’t be getting much fishing done if you can’t get your kit dried out. Make sure wherever you plan to stay it has some drying facilities.

Clashfern

I was content to have a day without too much of a hike on Thursday. In fact the beat I chose was Clashfern (Loch na Claise Fearna in the Gaelic), primarily a pretty wee loch situated right beside the road north of Scourie. The main loch has a boat beside the roadside, key and permits from the Scourie Hotel. I was told up front it doesn’t have the biggest Brown Trout in the area but I wasn’t too bothered by that.

It does though have a second lochan up on the hill above, which you can access on foot. While this too can be accessed from the road, I was told the much easier option, as the ground is particularly uneven, is to take the boat over the lower loch and walk from the other side, following the line of a small burn than links the two waters.

Clashfern itself looks to be linked to see by a good sized burn that runs down into Loch Laxford and you might imagine therefore that there might be the chance of a sea trout or salmon here but apparently not. Not sure why that is, there may be a good reason I am missing.

Afer more baling out ( though less than I expected) I rowed the good sized boat out and fished down a drift that carried me in towards the roadside bank. It was a grey and unpromising looking start to the day though at least it was dry, and unseasonably mild. I wasn’t bothered, it wasn’t raining and there were no midges to speak of.

Right from the off I was getting wee pulls, on my team of bushy wet flies and down in the roadside corner got my first fish of the day, a small 7″ brown trout on the Heatherfly Snatcher. I rowed back to get into the lee of the main island as the wind was making the drift quite fast even on a drogue. Out here in the middle I got my second fish, a better sized trout a wee bit longer than the first but significantly fatter. Same fly.

There was a collosal series of wind lanes running down to the bottom foam flecked corner of the loch and as I suspected might be the case there were plenty of fish around the edge of the foam and I had a double hook up on my first cast into here. This did have the downside that the got my leader into a right old tangle that needed fisging, and no sooner had I sorted it out than the wind acting on the flies snarled everything up a second time.

It can get frustrating at times sorting out leaders in the windy conditions and you just need to “keep the heid” and get it done.

I did a wee bit more paddling about in some of the fishy looking bays but got nothing there. I could have kept drifting into that bottom foam area but it was a bit of a wind tunnel and hard to hold and I wasn’t bothered for chasing the small fish in this manner.

Taking to the Hill

I decided to go find the in flowing burn and take to the upper lochan, Lochan an Fheidh. In as the crow flies terms it is not much more than 600 metres and the climb is probably little more than 60 metres in elevation, but that 600 metres is a hard one. The ground is full of holes, minor burns, soft mud and hidden slippery bedrock.

I was told to follow the burn but about one third of the way I noticed a “track” off to the right and used this. I think it was the better option at least on the ascent as though it involved more climbing than was strictly necessary it was firmer and more level in places, and gave some great views of the surrounding land and water.Loch Laxford was to the north and you could see the River Laxford running down the glen from Loch Stack. Ben Stack and Foinaven wer eboth clearly visibe though the tops were shrouded in cloud.

While windy, the weather started to brighten, and around mid afternoon the sun made a welcome appearance, a precursor to the next few days of fine weather. This top loch was weedy in places and I was getting little reaction to my flies. The odd fish was splashing and the ones I caught sight of looked a better size.

Sometimes you would cast out, dangle or “hang” your flies on the retrieve, and get no response. Then while you were false casting for your next delivery, a fish would splash where you had hung the flies. It was like they could not be bothered rushing themselves. I changed the point fly to the black gnat dry and my middle dropper to a Bushy wet Wickhams and was casting along the treacherous banks, into the margins.

I thought on one cast I had merely snagged some weed but no, it was in point of fact, a rather nice Brown Trout of getting closer to a pound, on the Wickhams.

I spent another pleasant hour or two working round this bonnie wee lochan, fishing the bays and promontories and though the odd fish did rise they seemed in little mood to oblige by actually taking the fly. Lots of splashes and even jumping at them but no takes.

As the day wore on I made my way down to the lower lochan again to what turned into a stunning evening of sunshine and it really was a pleasure to warm the old bones in the late evening heat….in September!

I netted one more small trout on a dry daddy down here before calling it a day and heading back to the Hotel. Friday was lining up to be a lovely day.

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