The Urban Fly Fisher

Photo shows cow resolving dispute

I found this pretty interesting

A photo on a Cornish archive containing thousands of images of the county has brought to light a bizarre story.
cow

So why did the cow want to get on his back ? Freaky Farmer !

A good way to recover after being ill? Part 2

So where was I?

Right, so on the Sunday we decided to make a proper day of it. My wife was working, Emmanuelleâ€™s girlfriend was in Italy with their baby and Alexâ€™s was away for the weekend to Edinburgh. So we did what any right minded male gents without a care in the world (other than my coughing) would do and went to the pub for a meal and then to the Glasgow Angling Centre. We had to pick up some little LED lights because of falling everywhere the night before (nothing to do with the heaby jeebies in the darkâ€¦I just donâ€™t like cows ok!!). We found them a little too expensive in the GAC so headed down to Maplins and picked some up there; I managed to grab the last fancy one that wrapped around your head but to be fair I just know the old ball n chain will be taking it off me to go to the loo when we camp.
waistcoat
So we then headed back to the river in good time, the two guys caught a fair few fish but for me it just did not seem to work, I caught a few smaller ones but just did seem to be getting the same takes as last night. Just before dusk we moved to a new stretch of river that did not look fished, well we had to jump over an electric fence (I was not happy) and then as there was no paths in the grass Emmanuelle fell into a giant nettle bush.
eman

Emmanuelle fished down stream and once I came to a funny long pull I noticed some fish rising. Well, I waited all that time for one to come along and then caught two the night before and low and behold I caught another grayling, this one was a little larger than the others and I started to get a very good feeling about this pool. I cast again as I thought there might be a shoal of them as I could spot a couple of risesâ€¦.
lovely
I watched my olive klink drift down and suddenly it disappeared, now it did not look like anything had actually taken it, it just was sucked under the surface â€œhello- I thought- I have heard of things like this beforeâ€ so I struckâ€¦this all happened in a split secondâ€¦I struck into a lovely brown troutâ€¦as I was still thinking of grayling I think I called out â€œwhat the fuck is that?â€ as all I could see was a massive tail turning over in the water, what followed was then one of the most memorable fights with a trout I have had in a long time, a couple of leaps out the water, swimming up and down and around, taking lineâ€¦.ah the joy- all this in around two foot of water as well Alex walked up to net the trout for me and in the walky talky saidâ€hey Emmanuelle, Alistair has caught himself a right clunkerâ€â€¦he replied â€œBig grayling, big trout what the hell is going on up thereâ€

Weighed in at one pound and 10oz.

Results of competition….

Will be in a few days (possibly a week), thanks to all those that entered it has been fun !

Fisherman dies in river accident

Sad, very sad indeed, you might remember I was going to fish the Tummel last weekend.

An angler who died after being swept down a river in Perthshire has been named by police.

Father-of-three Gordon Robertson was on holiday with his wife and children when he was pulled under the water in the River Tummel at Pitlochry.

The body of the 41-year-old, from Midlothian, was later found by a Royal Navy rescue helicopter.

It is thought his chest-high waders filled with water and trapped him under the surface while he was fishing.

An attempt by a passer-by to save Mr Robertson, of Burnside Road, Gorebridge, by throwing a rope into the water was unsuccessful.

It is understood the incident, which happened at about 1100 BST on Monday near the Tummel Valley Holiday Park, was seen by a family friend who was also on the holiday.

A Royal Navy helicopter which had been scrambled to help with the search spotted his body about two hours later.

Mr Robertson lost his footing and witnesses saw him being swept down the river and disappearing below the surface.

The spot he was fishing in was a short distance downstream from a Scottish Water pumping station and management made efforts to lower the water level.

Original Source Fisherman dies in river accident

A good way to recover after being ill? Part 1

It is always annoying when you have planned something and then something else comes along at the last minute to bugger everything up. I told you I pulled out of my weekend away as I was ill. Several of my fishing pals had planned to travel up to Pitlochery together and fish the Tummel and possibly another couple of rivers like the Tay or the River Lyon- all in all we had big plans. Unfortunately pulled out the day before after what started as a tickly sore throat turned into a raging fever with lots of mucous involvedâ€¦..yuck. Consequently the whole thing was cancelled. I was pretty annoyed, I mean by the Friday I was feeling better but no way recovered for 2 nights under canvas with three days hard fishing. Mike I later learned had done a bolt to fish some remote hill loch somewhere so that left Emmanuelle and Alex.
So Saturday I was feeling well enough to go for a little evening session on my other favourite river. We left at around 3pm whichmeant we would have a good quantity of time when we got there before any quality action started. Emmanuelle and Alex immediately headed down stream while I stayed put to sit and relax. I did not want to wear myself out too quickly.
relax
I must admit, just lying there in the shade, watching the river flow by was absolutely lovely, I think it really made me appreciate the pace that I should be going at a lot more. Ok- I know I was laying there doing nothing but when I did finally get my arse in gear I tried to just take my time going from little pool to little pool- not rushing at all which I think I have a tendency to do sometimes. This section of river is hard to fish and it is easy to get in a tangle or spook every trout in a pool. So taking your time is always the best option anyway, I am stunned it took illness to remind me of that.
tricky
There are so many bushes that eventually you must tie on new flies and tippets as well…

I did not catch many trout, I think maybe around 3 maybe but one fish I was not expecting to see was a Grayling. It was my first ever Grayling and was very happy to catch one finally. And then just like a bus when you wait ages for one another one came along on the next cast.

Later on as the sun went down we walked up past where all the pools are to a stretch of flat water hoping the trout were going to take sedges. Some did and some did not. It was very odd, I just could not coax some active feeders into taking anything at all but hey thatâ€™s life.

Our end of days fishing was full of calamities. For starters I took a tumble whilst going down a hill, banging my leg and hurting my wrist. This left me thoroughly miserable on the remainder of the walk back. At this point we discovered that a new electric fence had been erected across our path; or rather Alex discovered it as he tried to get his leg over it only to be shocked. Emmanuelle and I decided to try and find another way whilst agile Alex managed to jump over the fence, he did have an incentive though as he had already dropped his rod on he other side when he got his shock.
We planned another attack on Sunday- this time we would come back prepared with mini torches.

Watch this space.

The Highlander Way

You know, I donâ€™t think I have ever written about this little site although I have it in my links list on the main site. There are some lovely little gems of websites out there and this is one of them, I like little sites off the beaten track (a bit like my own) – something to do with the underdog maybeâ€¦
In the authors own words..

â€œNo “look how big a fish I can catch” No name dropping, no blonde bimbos hanging on my arm & no I don’t do competitions, sell cigars or fine wines. What I do “sell” is a gentler time when fly fishers treated their quarry with respect. Where fly fishers could sit & pass the time of day without mentioning, bag limits boobies & blobs.
Traditional tactics & flies are my weapons of choice. If this is for you then scroll onâ€

If you like the sound of that, you will love it.

Check it out- The Highlander Way
And check out some of the authors flies here

Sweating like a wildebeest !

As it turned out I need not need a campsite after all. On Wednesday I had a sore throat and by Thursday I was sweating like a wildebeest about to take a swim across a nice river with some suspicious floating logs. So I took two days off work and watched nature programmes.
Anyway, once I pulled out of the camping trip the whole thing fell apart. I may well go to my other favourite river tomorrow so will keep you updated.

Harelaw- third time lucky

So to round off my weekâ€™s annual leave I decided to have another bash at Harelaw Trout fishery. The last two times I went with Alex my first rainbow remained elusive but to be fair the first time it was a howling gale with white horses and driving rain whilst the second time we tried to kid ourselves on it was a spring day when in fact it was a nice winters day (froze my rocks off).
So Alex and I decided to get full blood lust tickets and spend an afternoon and evening going after rainbows. Sometimes you need to shake off tradition and try and â€œbag upâ€â€¦in our case it would be Sainsburyâ€™s bagsâ€¦plastic ones at that. Alex enthused about the trout we would catch â€œbring a bag, a big bagâ€¦.a sack evenâ€ and â€œthe boat will be full of blood, it will be like a Satanist weddingâ€ and â€œKill em all, let God sort em outâ€
the boss
On the loch we had plenty of time to talk about the differences in this type of fishing and fishing in rivers-I agreed it made a nice occasional change. There is something relaxing about just drifting along in a boat casting out, retrieving, not watching your fly constantly, thinking about drag. Just cast out, retrieve, cast out, and think about depth, retrieve- all very relaxing. It was a nice warmish day with only the occasional downpour of rain, the wind hardly got up to 5% of gale force (personally I felt kind of cheated at the least I expected to be struck by lightening).

We had a brief bit of confusion in the afternoon when it turned out we only had an engine till 5pm however it was a nice evening with easy rowing weather and knowing that we were getting a lift down the road instead of hiking it made it all the better. I was first to get a trout, a nice wild fish of about Â¾ lb

…and then on the next drift a rainbow of about a pound and Â¾. My first ever rainbow- I was surprised at how gently it took the fly â€œI think it might be a Perchâ€ I said to Alex before it finally woke up and went for a brisk jaunt around the boat..

Much apologies for the photo, it was not until later that I realised the trout was gutted and this was the only picture I had.

I have got to admit I cannot think of a nicer setting than Harelaw to get one, people are generally aware of what I think of fisheries and pellet pigs but Harlelaw is a wholly different, er, kettle of fish. We were using small traditional flies (keeping the Dog Nobblers in standby) which are what Brian the owner recommends.
red wine
There was a competition on at night- I think one of the guys thought I was some kind of butler or something as he insisted on whistling me over to push out, untie, pull in and tie up his boat whilst calling me son.

Alex had the same result as me, a wild fish and a rainbow, however his rainbow had a strange mutant extra fin.

All in all a very nice day

The Phenomenon

I always get paranoid when I take someone new to the Kelvin. I could have had weeks of fantastic fishing, all my hot spots throwing fat trout at me and the Kelvin behaving like, well, the Kelvin. And then I take someone who has never fished it and not only do they blank, but I blank as well (whilst seeing no fish whatsoever). This, I think, is a common phenomenon, I am reminded of the time that we travelled up to The Don and ended up sitting around looking at a wholly fishless river for most of the day.
Anyway, so this must have been what Alan, a long time fisher of the Kelvin, must have been thinking when he took me to the River Avon his now local little stream.
pool
Not only did we not catch anything, but we got caught in a torrential rain storm to boot. The temperature then plummeted, halting all fly life.
Avon Water:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Avon Water in Chatelherault Country Park.

Avon Water, also known locally as the River Avon, is a 24 mile long river in Scotland and a tributary of the River Clyde. Rising in east Ayrshire, the river flows in a north easterly direction through South Lanarkshire, passing towns such as: Strathaven, Glassford, Stonehouse, Larkhall and, finally, Hamilton, where it joins the River Clyde as it flows between Hamilton and Motherwell.
Points of interest along the river include: Cadzow Castle (ruins), the Cadzow Oaks, (some of which are over 600 years old), and Chatelherault Country Park.

riffles

The stretch that we fished was full of rocky pools and some nice glides, very pretty- no shopping trolleys or burnt out cars at all. At dusk we spotted some rising trout in a large pool but either they were being very sporadic or we spooked them and put them down.
alan
All said and done, we caught no trout, got rained on, I slipped a couple of times and had a thoroughly good time.

Actually, now I come to think about what I shall call the phenomenon (blanking spectacularly when showing a friend a sweet spot) happened the last two times I went to Harelaw Trout Fishery.
Alex enthused about the trout we would catch “bring a bag, a big bag….a sack even” and “the boat will be full of blood, it will be like a Satanist wedding” and “Kill em all, let God sort em out”

See:

A Perfect Storm (to fish in)

Harelaw-the second coming!

However, Alex is now glad that I have broke our chain of bad luck and I shall write up that little story later on.

Note: Alex may not have said actual words but most certainly thought them.

Milton of Fonab Campsite- a poor result

Going up to fish the Tummel next week and looking for a campsite in Pitlochry, I found the Milton of Fonab Campsite which looked ideal so emailed them. I explained that we are a group of anglers, fishing from dawn till dusk but the answer was nope, they do not accept groups of single sex parties. It was a very polite email, but still, pretty rubbish that a group of law abiding anglers cannot get a pitch on a camp site just because we are male………its a pity the law is not on our side….oh hang on it is..
UK Law on Equality and Discrimination

I think the pertinant line is

Currently, there is direct legislation dealing with discrimination on the grounds of sex, race and disability that applies in a number of fields, including employment, education, housing and the provision of goods and services.

Anyway, I have mailed them the link so will wait and see what they say

UPDATE

Having looked at some reviews, most notably here I am glad I got somewhere else. It seems a little cramped and a bit of a money making excercise with a busy road running past it….ugh avoid !!