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Haunted of Grantown-on-Spey
An angler reminisces about instances in his salmon fishing career, some surprising, some he would rather forget! many thanks to Tony for this but due to the content he prefers to remain anonymous!
I have been fishing for salmon, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, for over 35 years. Most of my fishing has been on Association waters with the occasional foray into good (nee expensive) water. Below are a few of the tales garnered during those wonderful years of fishing.
Days of Weeping.
The year is 1977 and after 8 years fishing for salmon on over fished or polluted water in Aberdeenshire, I wangled my way onto a private beat on the Lower Dee in April, which has no tenants. I am overjoyed as I have the beat to myself (something I will regret later) – the water is running high but clear and I am optimistic.
Up goes the spinning rod with an 18 gram silver Toby and I am off. Minutes later I get a violent take and away goes what I soon realised was a substantial fish. Time goes by and when, for a moment, I get the fish close enough to see it, I immediately start trembling, this fish is in the class you only dream of, 40 pounds plus! The fight continues and I look at my watch, one hour has passed and I am getting no where. Unfortunately the fish realises this as well and goes back to the lie it came from, and sits there!
Now I wish I was not on my own as I have no idea what to do. Racking my brains for another 20 minutes I recall something I have read about stubborn fish – “go below them and pull and turn their heads”. So I walk downstream, keeping on the pressure until I am below this gigantic fish and doing what the book said I heave into him.
Disaster! Immediately, the hook came out – to this day more that 35 years later I could take you to the exact spot where I lost this fish, the whole episode is seared into my memory. The lesson, off course, was that the advice in general was poor, because in any prolonged fight the hook will pull a hole and if you change the angle of the fight the hook may just come out, undoubtedly this was the reason for losing this fish.
If I had stayed above him I might still be there today fighting it out with the fish of a lifetime.
Days of Guilt.
Its July on the Grantown beat of the Spey and there has been a summer spate bringing lots of salmon to the beat. With water running 2 feet above summer level, spinning is the order of the day. By this time I am a dedicated fly man and am only on the beat making up the numbers as I know I have little chance.
I am a well known face however and considered until this moment, a capable and knowledgeable fishermen. The fisherman below me, using a Rapala, gets into a good fish of 15lb+ and asks me to tail the fish. Clearly, he is not very experienced and is very anxious. He hauls the fish into 4 or 5 inches of water very quickly and says “tail him, tail him!” I bend down and get my hands around the tail it which point he hauls even more so that virtually all of the fish is out of the water and all weight is on the line. The inevitable happens and the knot at the Rapala breaks. Now I am holding a 15lb fish that has been played out, by the tail, with a Rap having three large treble hooks wafting about close to my hand. Sometimes I am quick to think, and thought firstly “this is bloody dangerous” and second “this is not my fish” and let go. Since that day I have not been asked again to tail a fish by anyone!
The fisherman was inconsolable but the matter did not rest there. Three days later I was on the Findhorn fishing a beat well off the beaten track where all you see are eagles and red deer.
It is
now 3 in the afternoon and I have seen nobody since
starting at 8 in the morning. Nothing was happening
and then along came a solitary walker. As you do, we
passed the time of day and talked about the fishing
and he asked where I normally fished. I replied Grantown on Spey. “Ah” he said ”three days ago my
friend was fishing there and do you know some b*st*rd
dropped his 15lb fish back into the river when
tailing it”
“That’s terrible” I replied ”but I must get back to my fishing now”.
Days of Disbelief.
This time it is July 2002, another spate, different pool, the Lurg. Standing on the Old Bridge with a group of anglers, we are mulling over how long it will be before somebody has to rescue a beginner who is standing on the casting platform with 18 inches or more water running over it ( we do not go onto the platform until it appears after a spate as there is deep water in front and 20 foot deep hole just below.The novice is steadily casting maybe 5 yards of line with big pauses in between.
With the fly dangling at his side of the platform for minutes we are now wondering if he realises what he is doing when suddenly all hell breaks loose as a big fish came up and took his fly!
Now there is serious danger and one of the boys goes to help. After a 20 minute tussle the two of them land a sparkler of an 18lb fish. What this says is there is always hope, even for the hopeless, when salmon fishing.
It seems there is always at least one salmon more stupid than the angler on the other end of the line.
Tight Lines!
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