RIVER REVERIES

Taking to the river is a glorious time in which the mind can wander free, and for Michael Wigan it also proves to be the perfect moment to stop and admire the beauty of Mother Nature

Letting his mind wander as he takes to the water once more, Michael Wigan sees great beauty in Mother Nature

‘Two lochs, 200 miles and 150 trout’

With salmon anglers surging northwards after lockdown eased, so too did the trout anglers. I met two exhausted Fifers who had left home at 5am and driven straight to the loch of choice. It is big and windy, a challenging proposition for anyone and, like other Sutherland waters, full of trout. ‘How did it go,’ I enquired. ‘Over a hundred,’ said one of them, exhaling a sigh. It was teatime and they had not yet touched base so I asked, ‘what next?’ He studied me - was I being obtuse? ‘We’re going up to the loch,’ he said, visualising it, ‘if the wind is OK.’ Two lochs, 200 miles and maybe 150 trout. Lockdown was a faint memory.

He was arriving on the next lochside a few days later as I was leaving. I had a few trout in a net, nothing spectacular, but he looked with keen interest. His eye ran up and down my cast, checking the flies and the leader thickness. It occurred to me, why should he bother doing that when he was the one who had caught far more? Trout fishers are like that. What others do matters.

The reason is that so much deliberation goes into what you do yourself. If the wind is faint puffs and the face of the water too calm, tie a longer leader so the team of flies seem like unconnected individuals. Bushy flies are fine in choppy water, they show up better, but slim ones swim smoother under flatter surfaces. Maybe silver or gold on the shank to catch the light, or so you tell yourself. How often do you consider how the fly looks against the sky, from below, the trout’s eye view?

Like you, I spend some time on these considerations. But there are other distractions. An immature diver flew over my head twice, having circled. The divers’ weird arctic cries are the spirit of the far north in Canada but here I seldom hear them call. A few

days before an osprey was leaving the loch with his personal trout as I drove up. He held it forward, pointing at the wind, presumably for thermo-dynamic efficiency.

Over time my interest in the trout has moved towards the gastronomic. I want the ones with pink flesh, which have been eating freshwater shrimp. They taste immeasurably better. I knew two old timers who had worked out where the shrimpbeds were.

They targeted fish feeding there. Sometimes they first shuffled through the shrimp beds in high waders, then waited until trout arrived to gobble what had been dislodged. It is harder to pick the pinkies because outer appearance gives no indication. This particular loch has varied coloured fish, some more silver and some buttery-yellow with large ringed black spots. You only know the flesh colour when you gut them.

Each year changes. In 2020 there is less surface weed. Normally this is floating in small islands by mid-summer. You can spot weedislands because the ripples flatten on them. Unstringing slimy green tendrils from your flies is a bore, so you watch to avoid the weed.

This year weed is below the surface. Growth by July has finished and light intensity decreases, so it won’t poke up now. A prolonged spell of winter ice slows growth, which is dependent on light. If there is cloud — and we have seen plenty — that slows it, too. So many factors affect the year’s fishing, nearly every one beyond human alteration or modification.

It has been a good year for bending rods. I had another car window exchange with someone else sporting rod clips. He had had 49. There were three anglers. Not bad, I thought, dull brain moving slowly. Then it dawned, I re-checked his face and the deep-bedded smile. He had meant salmon. After six days fishing they had chalked up a record-book total. If you want to know the whereabouts of Cloud 9 ask him; he was on it.

‘An osprey was leaving the loch with his personal trout’