Outdoor life

Make the most of the good weather

In the shrivelled social scene of late season lockdown, petrol pumps were where to get the craic. I saw a man who had rod clips on the car. ‘How’s the fishing?’ I enquired. ‘Water’s low, but I had two over the last few days,’ he said. We exchanged identities.

There were thunderstorms and lashing squalls, so we chatted as we waited for the water to rise. Duncan told me where he fished and recalled two old memories in which he had been attending other anglers. In the first, a lady angler pierced by back pain had handed him the rod; she then watched as he landed five. In the second the action started at 2pm and by nightfall he had nine salmon. That memory was as brilliant as the salmon had been.

He vouchsafed more. Back then all the salmon had been killed. These days he gets more pleasure from releasing them. ‘You hold the tail and when it waves in your hand he is saying goodbye, and you watch him go.’ Duncan was brown and weatherbeaten. For him lockdown effectively ended when angling resumed in late May.

When the relaxation came, fishing within five miles of your home, which was the first phase, was always just guidance. In some parts those in charge were meticulous and only known locals were allowed to fish. But in most of Scotland the translation of ‘local’ was more elastic, anglers making careful and personal definitions. Five miles stretched to a hundred.

Huge fun was had. Local anglers fished water they had only gazed at before. Daily catches in double figures for a pair of rods were common.

Then as time passed the salmon got wiser. The gap in the fishing calendar when springers have become comfortably resident and grilse have not yet arrived is familiar. The long-time occupants of the pools lose their mint silver, get a little squint-eyed. As weather warmed they got lazy, pensive, semi-comatose. To stretch their legs they lunged into the air, going nowhere in particular, but having a look round. The anglers saw them and heard their splashes, but couldn’t get them out.

Here the local angler scene differed from the usual pattern of angling leased to folk from far away. The local selects his moment. The water is less thrashed and flows undisturbed to the sea. Pools were fished but never wore that tired look, with well-trodden trails to the first casting spot.

The visiting fisher, understandably, wants his money’s worth and has come a long way. Waiting for weather is not in his timetable. If the fly is in the water, as the ghillie gently reminds him, that is how to hook something.

The indigenous angler can be picky. He or she can stay parked close, sipping from a thermos or brewing up. Social distancing is fine on the riverbank; no-one is cheek by jowl anyway. Groups of anglers shared the craic and mused on corona, and politics, and scraps of gossip and tittle-tattle, luxuriating in the lack of fishing pressure.

When fishing was opened to all in early July a new sentiment floated up. It had been fine for a while; and was certainly fine for me because I was a local angler too. We had all caught a few, but anglers, like everyone else, long for life.

They missed the visitors and the shared experiences. Visitor anglers bring with them an outer world, a universe at a tangent.

The river makes everyone the same, the ultimate leveller. Ghillies had caught all the fish they wanted to catch.

When Iceland announced in mid-June that its fishing was open there was a palpable sinking feeling. Would everyone go there?

Reality caught up at home and Scotland followed suit shortly after. Sporting agents reported pent-up demand. For many lockdowners, confined for a quarter of a year, rippling water and whistling wind was the balm needed.

Lockdown was fine and contemplative but salmon and sea-trout spell unpredictable action and a connection with nature that is more than mental.

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