Knot impressed as one gets away

Back to the river with Waffle. The water was up and bit peaty. Not bad for that beat. My hostess sent me to a pool where I’d caught sea trout in the past. You have to start above a croy, a man-made pile of rocks strategically plonked at an angle to create “stream” and gouge out a pool. This is all fine until you have to get round the croy.

At this point, as usual, Waffle decided to come sweeping past, head in air happily paddling sideways. Then mercifully went digging for mice. The fish there hug the grassy opposite bank which plunges straight down into a deep trench. So a long cast then. Early on something had sploshed encouragingly at the end of the pool. But nothing else stirred. So after fishing it down I changed the Lurex-tailed Ally Shrimp fly for a smaller tailless General Practitioner and for no known reason put an extra turn in the knot, smoked a rolly on the bank, admired a passing sparrow hawk and took the sticky willy out of Waffle’s ears, then started in again.

Half way down, in the traditional spot, something took the fly. The fish showed just a slither of dark back as it took in a shallow swirl. To begin with it was happy to be reeled in and held, unsure what was going on. It then woke up and began a deep ponderous progress upriver, moving from one side to the other, stopping and then taking off downstream. It never moved very fast, just making long steady dashes downstream each time it came up level with the rod.

Each time I was easing it up just that little bit closer as it tired. And then back it went across and down the stream for 20 yards. And the line went slack. For a split second I told myself it had made a fast U-turn back towards me before I could take in line. But it was off.

Even more galling – I shouldn’t even admit it – that in spite of that extra and untypical extra turn in the knot, the cast had pulled through the eye of the fly. A squiggle of cast told its own story. I never saw the fish. Its lack of skittishness, powerful progress and reluctance to show itself suggested something biggish. But who knows?

I later I recounted the tale to a ghillie. That was nothing, he said. And cheerfully relived the moment he had been about to net a fish for a guest, looked up for the tip of the rod and put the end of his fag straight through the cast. “Ach, I jist telt him it was a wind knot that broke it.” n