This years fishing trip is to the Assynt area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. I have spent some time up this way in the past when I used to install and commission microwave radio links during the earlier part of my career. Indeed I noticed today, one of the links I did is still there, though I imagine it’s been upgraded since. I had never fished here though and it has been a long time ambition to fish a couple of the literally hundreds of Brown trout occupied lochs and lochans in this area.
Quirk of fate
A quirk of fate made it happen this year and the trip is underway. I am being a bit of a Kenny “nae mates” being up here on my lonesome but it does mean I can do my own thing to my own timetable and with my own particular brand of faffing about, without bothering anyone. If I want to take a few photos or make some video I can, and no one is being irritated or held up.
Scourie Hotel
I am based at the Scourie Hotel which is a very well known fishing hotel in these parts, and it has has a huge range of lochs and lochans under its control and a unique way of controlling these waters. Residents get the fishing included with their stay and one resident who knows the waters well, is designated “Boardmaster” and offers out each guest or group of guests a “beat” which comprises of one or a number of waters that become yours for the day. As days progress you climb up the board until you get first dibs on whatever water you want based on your requirement. Some are literally by the roadside, others are a long hike into the wilderness.
One fellow “solo” guest, Graham from Glasgow, said he had been coming for several years now and he treated it like hillwalking with the chance of some fishing at the destination. I totally get what he means.
Day One: The Gorm Lochs
Day One for me and I was allocated the Gorm Lochs. I asked for somewhere about an hours walk and that’s exactly what I got. Gorm Loch is an almost precisely, 1 hour hike over some very wet and uneven ground, that takes you past another beat, the long thin Loch a’Mhuirt. Like Gorm Mhuirt has a cluster of lochans around it that belong to the angler allocated this beat. It took me about 25 minutes to the top end of this loch and another 30 until eventually the large first half of Gorm came into sight. It is a kind of figure of 8 loch which has a very narrow section in the middle that links the north half to the south half. On a fair day with two to a boat I reckon it must be a nice row and fish to do both halves.
On my visit it wasn’t that nice a day. We had had totally torrential rain on the Saturday as I came up and the ground was utterly sodden. Some of the tracks were turned into small burns and I had to resort to taking to the drier but rougher ground to make progress on the way there. It has to be said though it was pleasantly mild so cold was never a factor. It stayed dry all the way in and indeed the sun shone for much of it, but accompanied by a very blustery and strong wind.
When I reached the loch I dumped my rucksack and started fishing round the very full-of-water boat. I soon realised that fishing this area was going to be hard as the banks are very high away from the bay where the boat was moored.
Having fished all the water I reasonably could and having recce’d out the next bay which looked very fishy and remarkably calm, I returned to the boat to have a quick packed lunch and to consider my options. There were a couple of lochans up above this loch or there was the boat.
The wind dropped a bit and stayed abated for a good half hour and I decided to bale out the boat and see how things looked. This took me 20 minutes and then with the weather stil a little blustery but actually beaming bright sunshine, I decided to get in and row round to the next sheltered bay.
Once there I was having a nightmare staying in the bay. While the wind was blowing West to East for some reason my boat was drifting in East to west and spinning quite quickly. Even with my hastily deployed drogue it was hopeless. There was some sort of wind bowl that was making it impossible to hold a steady drift or distance from the bank.
I opted to row out of the bay…..just as a huge squally rain shower came through. While it was a shower- a short-lived cloud burst, it consisted of horizontal driving rain and a big rush of wind. I struggled with keeping the boat safe, the drogue out, and trying to get my Goretex over trousers on so I didn’t end up totally soaked through.
I ended up rowing into the north bank and deliberately grounding the boat to let the shower pass, and after about ten minutes the skies cleared, just leaving a strong wind. The boat was full of water again so more baling before I resumed my drift. There was not a lot of fishing getting done.
As I drifted near a prominent point on the far bank of the south end of the loch I spotted a wind lane and tried my flies in there and almost right away there was a swirl at them and then a wee pull. But the boat was drifting far too fast to hold station and I was in danger of grounding with the wind pushing the boat ashore. This was not looking so clever so I quickly decided to abandon the fishing and try row back up the loch into the wind.
I utterly struggled and only by letting the boat move into a wee bay to the north did I manage to make any progress away from the promontory. But as soon as I edged the boat out from the shelter of the bay the wind just pushed me right back where I came from. I spent 40 minutes going precisely nowhere despite rowing as hard as I could.
I was really starting to worry I might have to drift ashore and leave the boat…not the most auspicious start to my week. Then I noticed that on the eastern side the water looked marginally calmer so I decided to try row oer and see if I could maybe get some shelter from the wind to make progress. Another 40 minutes but at last I was in the shelter of this bank and as long as I stayed in tight to the bank I made my way up the loch to just shy of the bay where the mooring was. Knackered doesn’t even come close. I was close to exhaustion I was thinking they might find my cold dead body having succumbed to a heart attack or a stroke! It really was brutally hard.
I managed to tie the boat to a couple of stunted trees and get out so I could empty out more water from showers and spray being blown over the bow of the boat, that had accumulated round my feet. Everything was soaking.
I got all my gear out and marched it round to the mooring, then stopped for a drink and a Mars Bar to get a bit of a sugar hit and some energy back. I then waited for the wind to drop just enough that I could venture out into the last bay and get to the mooring. Another 15 minutes and I was there. I must have spent 2 hours in this fiasco.
Once I had had another break I still had a few hours left so decided to find the nearest lochan which was only about a 10 minute steep walk. It was much easier to fish here though arguably more exposed to the wind , and I fished along the one low bank that allowed me to keep the wind behind me. I did see one fish rise to my right and despite my best efforts to cover it ( accuracy was a non starter in the blustery wind) I got no touches. It being near 17:00 I realised I really needed to make my way off the hill and commenced the walk back. I was joined by another couple of torrential cloudbursts on the way and made a bit fo a navigational error on the last leg that cost me 15 minutes of steep climbing but made it back to the car fishless, and rather red in the face from exertion.
I was so grateful for the steroid shot I got last week as no way would I have been able to take this on without it. According to my smartphone pedometer I had walked 3.9 miles and for 2hours and 11 minutes but it felt more like 10 miles given the nature of the ground. Tough going.
Day Two: Strathain
For my second day I asked for something that was less of a hike. I got all my gear dried out overnight and made a few adjustments to what I was taking ( though I still carry way too much as I like to take my camera gear as well as fishing tackle).
I was told this main loch was “a five minute walk”. Right enough it was not that far though again the ground was pretty heavy going and wet but the route was fairly well defined. It took about 25 minutes to reach the first lochan. I was told this lochan though home to some potentially big fish was very dour and the better fishing was in the bigger loch in a depression to the north called Loch na Beiste Brice. There is also apparently a limestone loch on the hill to the north above this that I could also fish but it was a fair climb and walk in a bit of a round about route to get there. In the weather conditions, very strong winds I opted to head into the low ground and fish the bigger lower loch.
The east end was very weedy and I tried a single dry fly ( a daddy longlegs as these seem to be working for most anglers here just now, but not until I was about halfway up the north side did I get a fish at least splashing at it.
I cannot tell a lie I was starting to get a bit worried I could have a week of blanking. As the water was getting less weedy here I decided to change to a two fly cast of a green-tailed Kate and a Heather-fly Snatcher, two of my favourite Brown trout flies.First cast – not really a cast more of a dapp in the strong wind and at times torrential rain, I had a fish, fairly small, about 6-7 ” but almost black. The GTK worked its magic again. I then had a few slashy rises to the fly but no more offers and in keeping with my own advice in this type of fishing moved on up the bank. The shore of the loch is studded with little promontories that make covering an area fairly easy. You couldn’t wade if you wanted to.
Once at the west end with the wind behind me I managed two or three fish at each spot I stopped at. Admittedly I did not net them all as with the small pan net It was very hard sometimes to get close to the fish over the steep bank and so a few were released straight off the hook. A couple were in the 3/4lb class and put up a great fight though all were on the GTK. The final area I fished was a mat of lily-pads with a wee burn outflow in the middle and then another section of banking. I think I had about 5 fish in all here from 6-7″ up to three quarters of a pound again. In total I had about 10 fish with all but one on the GTK and one on a Grouse and Claret. The fish in these parts still like traditional.
A few times the weather just howled in but I could see it coming and was able to get myself ready for the maelstrom. They soon pass though sometimes the horizontal rain is a bit sore if you face into it.
I had fished most of the way round so made my way back up the rather steep hill via a cairn. and back to the first lochan and I fished about 2/3rds of this but despite a few areas I would have bet to have held fish, never saw or touched one.
Dour right enough.
Then it was time for the short hike out, another 30 minutes into the teeth of yet another torrential squall, but my outdoor gear kept me dry and for the most part warm, though it was cooler today and I maybe need another base layer.
As I write this the wind sounds wild outside, I hope it might relent a bit as the week goes on. Please!
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