Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Grabbing the chance to walk with giants
Myles Archibald follows in the footsteps of the great Sidney Spencer to land a Hebridean beauty near the writer’s ‘Three-rock Salmon Lie’
For wildfowlers it’s the sound of geese at dawn, for the rough shooter it’s the haunting shriek that snipe make when they rise from the reeds, but for me it’s that heavy splosh as a bar of silver leaps from the water and falls back again. I’d only been sitting on the bank for a couple of minutes when it happened and I only had to sit there for five or so minutes more, watching the river mouth, to confirm for myself that it was true — the west coast of the Hebrides was having a great salmon year.
Before we arrived, our party had become increasingly enthusiastic as the June and July count zoomed upwards until the salmon figures for two months had swept past normal numbers for the entire year. But it wasn’t only the lure of salmon that had drawn us north — in my case, via two airports and lots of late-night gin in Edinburgh — the Hebrides are quite simply a magnificent place to be.
The beaches are second to none and the tranquillity is restorative. Occasionally, the wind drops enough to necessitate a midge net and some jungle formula, but it is a small price to pay. Finally, where can you catch loch salmon these days, surrounded by hills and eagles (of both types), stags and hinds looking forward to the autumn rut, sitting in a boat as it bounces on a good wave, anticipation in your heart and a firm grip on the fly-rod? That’s why I come, sometimes more in hope than expectation, but this year expectations were high.
Looking at numbers on Fishpal is all well and good, but you need to see it for yourself to believe it — those silver heads poking out of the brackish water and fish leaping high into the air. It was clear that things were different and, in truth, it can be hard to know why.
Part of it, of course, is that in order to catch salmon in the river system, there has to be enough rain for the fish to run, which there has been this year. It’s also the case that lots of water over a long period means they don’t spend too long at the mouth of the river, where they are at risk of predation. Here, we had already seen a seal and two otters migrating towards the river mouth, so they knew that the salmon were there.
Insect life
The fish in the river were almost all grilse — they had only gone to sea last year after two or three years as parr in freshwater. If they went to sea in May last year, they would have left in the middle of the extraordinary spell of dry weather the Hebrides had in 2021.
In fact, they would have lived through the amazing spring that made the first lockdown in 2020 feel vaguely bearable. Good weather would have increased insect life both above and below the surface, so maybe the parr had fed well and more had smolted and gone to
sea in better condition.
One thing that fish from the river do manage to avoid is the scourge of sea lice. From the mouth of the river, they cross the sea loch through the narrows, swim on past the island, and then head out into the North Atlantic. Their trip to the feeding grounds off Greenland is shorter and more direct than any other salmon in the British Isles. The size of the fish splashing about in the sea pool would also suggest that they had fed well off Greenland. It was a case of big fish in big numbers and plenty of water for them to run.
All of this is fine in theory. It was time to see what we would find in reality. We followed the path up the side of the river, following the salmon’s journey, past the Halfmoon Pool, past the junction where a branch of the river ran up into the clear loch in the hills and further still past the waterfall, before the large loch we were headed for opened out in front of us.
It is a walk for the committed, to be done in the hot flush of salmon fever, armed to the teeth with flies that you
have dreamed about using for the past 12 months. We were also walking in the footsteps of giants. Well, almost. Sidney Spencer, one of our greatest fishing writers, often stayed on the other side of the moor and came at the system from the east.
We had followed the route used by Spencer and the local postman, and understood why Spencer only did it when the conditions were perfect. The postman had to do it every day, latterly following the telegraph poles installed in World War II so that watchers above the sea loch could signal if German submarines started to use it as a base. From the bothy, we could see Spencer’s Salmon Point,
Three-rock Salmon Lie and, in the far distance, the Eagle Rock glistening in the sun.
The light was perfect, as was the steady breeze from the south-west, and the bounce on the boat and the inky-blue colour were near perfect. There wasn’t a fish in sight but, oddly, I think that often increases your chances with both salmon and sea trout. The last thing you need are distracted fish leaping out of the water when they should be concentrating on your flies. Inevitably, after all of that anticipation, a blank morning followed. We changed flies, we altered the retrieve, fished the normal lies twice, fished them again. Nothing.
“We changed flies, altered the retrieve, fished the normal lies twice. Nothing”
So much for the theory, but we knew there had to be fish in the loch — all we needed were ones that would take.
After sandwiches and a cold bottle of beer, we pondered what to fish with next. We’d had no luck with Stoat’s Tails, Kate Mclarens, Claret Bumbles and Orange Muddlers.
The sky had cleared and it was sunnier than is perhaps ideal and the breeze had dropped.
“How about trying the Blue Elver?” suggested Sean, the gillie. The Blue Elver fly is well known as the Grimersta fly. The pattern was concocted by Arthur Ransome in an idle moment in the Flyfishers’ Club in Mayfair, London — a very long way, in every sense, from the Hebrides.
I’d stuck four into my fly box before I’d set out. They look so much like sand eels that they often come in handy for bass or sea trout — and they catch a lot of salmon at Grimersta.
So, why not?
Spirited fight
Within 20 minutes of fishing the Blue Elver, a little below the surface on a top dropper, a lovely sea trout struck the fly hard and was landed after a short, spirited fight. Then all went quiet. We fished down the north bank, round the corner and up to Three-rock Salmon Lie. Surely something will be at home. Nothing. We drifted down past the rocks and into the small bay. “A couple more casts and then let’s go back up the loch,” said Sean.
A cast — just avoiding catching the rock with the point fly and then strip, strip. From the depths came the flash of the fish that a millisecond later mullered the fly in exactly the same style as the sea trout. But it fast became clear that this was different. As I tried desperately to keep the salmon out of the rocks, Sean eased the boat into deeper water, where I played the fish as hard as I dared.
Shutting my eyes now, I can still feel the power of the fish, the glint of the sunshine and the gentle bounce of the boat. Stay very calm, get the fish’s head up, net out, fish landed.
No regrets
For a quiet moment, Sean and I simply sat there and admired its beauty, before releasing it. As I watched it disappear into the depths, I thought about its journey from the spawning beds above us, all the way to Greenland and back again.
We found another four that week. Ransome once wrote: “Grab a chance and you won’t be sorry for what might have been.” Travelling to somewhere beautiful for sport is always a chance worth taking. I hope Ransome, and Spencer, would approve.
“Shutting my eyes, I can still feel the power of the fish”