Trout & Sea Trout Fishing on the River Avon
by John Gray
The Linlithgow Angling Club
manages the trout and sea trout fishing on an extensive stretch of the
little River Avon in West Lothian. Club members have done a great deal
of work since the nineteen eighties to help the river recover from the
heavy industrial pollution of earlier years. This lovely little river
now boasts a healthy population of brown trout and is seeing increasing
runs of migratory fish, particularly sea trout. The club, which has
exclusive access to ten miles of fishing on the lower middle river,
welcomes applications for membership, which is very reasonably priced at
only £26 per year (2008 figure). Having joined the club in 2007, I soon
made use of the excellent map provided by the club, in conjunction with
the local ordnance survey map, to explore the fishing throughout the
length of the beat. There is great variety in the fishing, some pools
being easily accessed from riverside paths, while others present more of
a challenge but offer truly wild fishing on pools where the equally wild
trout rarely see an angler's fly.
After some heavy rain during the
first week in August, I thought I'd spend an afternoon on the club
water, the afternoon of the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008. The
Chinese people thought it was a propitious day for the opening of the
Olympic Games. Perhaps it would prove fortuitous for me, too. On
arrival, I found the river running off after a very big flood, but still
very dirty. It was a fine day and, by the look of it, the river was
likely to continue falling throughout the afternoon. Judging that the
river was still a bit high and dirty for the usual small trout flies, I
decided to try a more substantial offering, in the form of a simple one
inch needle tube fly with a black squirrel hair wing, in the hope of
attracting a sea trout. Such a fly had proved most effective earlier in
the year on the Spey, so I thought it might be just the job for the Avon
sea trout. It proved a good choice, as I finished the afternoon with a
lovely sea trout, a fish of nearly two pounds in weight, my first from
the river, and, as a bonus, half a dozen lovely wild brownies, all of
which were returned to fight another day.
See also
Tube Flies
Part of the Linlithgow Angling Club water above
the railway viaduct at Linlithgow Bridge
A nice pool on the club water
Needle Tube Fly
A lovely wild Avon brown trout
My first Avon sea trout
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