Goosanders don’t catch and return

February 12 and the opening of the fishing season for us. An appalling day of sleet and wind and and I am meant to be taking a trailer of furniture down south when a friend arrives proffering a bottle of what appears to be an Aberlour 12 year old, but turns out to be something far fruitier, considerably stronger, and quite possibly illegal.

I take this as a sign to abandon the trip, for a day anyway, and hunker down with the bottle, Waffle the working cocker and Alf our sporting companion in his fishing hut and discuss the prospects for the season, as tradition dictates.

As the prospects are almost certainly dire and no-one has a clue anyway, this was likely to be a fairly short conversation. News of a 32-pounder caught on the Brora illogically raised the spirits in spite of the fact that what happens on the Brora is almost certainly irrelevant to us.

However, Alf has installed a new wood-burning stove in the hut of the pot-bellied variety, bought online from Machinery Mart. Its main drawback is that it is designed to burn Chinese coal, and we only have wood which must be chopped up into very small bits to get it in the very small door.

Alf has cunningly wrapped several yards of 10mm copper pipe round the cast-iron flue.the copper pipe is fed by a small water tank on a shelf and the system produces enough hot water through a brass tap for several cups of tea and hot toddies.

Fishing is also a possibility, although the river is high and fast and uninvitingly grey and the trees behind the bank demand a cunning roll cast into the teeth of a nor ’westerley. While waiting for the hot water, we stand on his veranda and admire, if that is the word, a squadron of fish-eating goosanders perform a smoothly controlled flypast en route to plunder stocks of baby salmon or anything that wiggles.

Naturally, goosanders are protected although, rather surprisingly, most river boards are granted licences to shoot a few – a few being the operative word. Last time I looked the quota for the entire river was a dozen with the odd cormorant thrown in to keep the angling fraternity happy. Which of course it doesn’t, as goosanders will eat around eight fish a day and there are something like 12,000 goosanders in the country which suggests they are tucking into 35 million fish a year although presumably not all trout and salmon.

Even the RSPB, which tends to downplay the effect some birds can have on the environment remarks of the bird, “its love of salmon and trout has brought it into conflict with fishermen.” Which may account for the fact they have been mistaken for large ducks during the shooting season. Which would never do. n