Martin Bowler’s Adventures
A Highland fling on the River Ness is pure pleasure
Big-fish ace heads north in search of monsters
FUELLED by the famous loch above it, the River Ness pushed its way past my waders at an unrelenting pace on its journey to the Moray Firth.
I could think of few better places to cast a line on an autumn day than here in the Scottish Highlands, not far from the north-east coast and Inverness.
A gentle breeze blew down the valley, loosening leaves made brittle by the previous night’s frost. Swirling on the surface, their amber hue mirrored the pale whisky tinge of the river itself.
This was indeed a place to forget everyday stress and replace it with one overriding thought – when would the salmon strike?
My dear friend, the aptly-named Raymond Fisher, had invited me to join his jovial party for three days at the wonderful Ness Castle Lodges. This beat takes in a mile of river including the famous Black Stream, one of the Ness’s narrowest sections and an ambush point for the angler.
The lodge on the river bank sets the tone the minute you arrive, offering everything you could ever wish for on an angling holiday and a far cry from the normal bedchair and bivvy.
The facilities here are first-class, with a resident chef who serves up food a million miles away from Pot Noodle! Already replete from today’s cooked breakfast, then pasta followed by crumble for lunch, I still had a Thai banquet to look forward to.
No wonder the waders seemed a little tighter than before!
Wonderful as it was, there was far more than food, accommodation and fishing to the package – estate manager and gillie Gordon Armstrong, who has cast a fly line an incredible 73½yds and just happens to be a three-times World spey-casting Champion, was on hand to assist.
I was fascinated to watch, listen to and learn from Gordon. His first cast came at the age of eight, in pursuit of trout with his grandfather, and only two years later he had progressed to salmon.
The Ness is a big river, and over the years has been home to some of the world’s best casters – men like Alexander Grant and Scott Mackenzie.
Gordon’s talents were nurtured here as he perfected the local spey-casting technique, but I sensed there was more to his fish-catching prowess than throwing a line a long way.
That alone means nothing unless it’s matched to an understanding of life below the surface.
On arrival at the water my party subjected Gordon to a barrage of
questions and I was as guilty as the next man, wanting to know how far out the salmon were. He didn’t show it, but I suspected that he felt like screaming!
A true gentleman and professional, Gordon took time to study my casting with a fly line and, when he should have said ‘pathetic’, he instead put me at ease and corrected every move!
After half an hour of pain, and risking a hook to the back of the head, I genuinely improved and, more importantly, learnt what I was doing wrong.
What I should perhaps have asked of my host was: “How do I fish my fly better?” because a long cast with poor presentation will never match a fully extended line
and a leader that loops smoothly across the river.
First locate your fish, then presentation comes into play. Gordon understands this better than anyone I’ve ever met, and when you add to this his prowess at propelling a line, he’s a master at his game.
Salmon are a truly wild quarry, and as a lad growing up in Bedfordshire I thought fishing for them was something only folk born with a silver spoon in their mouth could hope to do.
This is totally wrong, and nor do you have to be a purist and fish only the fly. Purists may turn their noses up at the use of worms or lures but I don’t give a stuff what they think – and nor should you, as they don’t own the species.
However, once you’ve hooked a salmon legally the addiction grows, and spey-casting will then pose its own wonderful challenge.
As I worked methodically downriver my heart was beating faster, even though I had yet to touch silver.
All morning the line had been at the mercy of the river and my own attempts to cast it properly. Then, suddenly, a third force was involved, knocking only once before its jaws snapped shut on the fly.
Instinct kicked in and I struck into a Scottish salmon that countered with a screaming run.
As the fish neared the net I looked heavenwards and thanked the angling gods for their bounty.
At that very moment the salmon leapt, clearing the waters of the Ness in a spray of silver. Special times indeed!