A highland trout loch revisited
by John Gray
Twenty five years ago, I fished a loch on
the Rhuba Mor peninsula in Wester Ross. I caught one trout. Not
a remarkable achievement, you might think, and no doubt you
would be right. That trout, though, weighed about twelve ounces,
well above the average for a highland loch, and it left a
lasting impression.
 In
July 2007, I had the good fortune to find myself once again in
that wonderful part of Scotland, in a touring caravan pitched
right on the beach at Laide, within a modest cast of the clear
blue waters of Gruinard Bay. In such an idyllic location, my
wife and I might have been forgiven for spending the whole week
on that beach, invigorated by the sea air, watching the tide
come and go, and with it the endless variety of sea birds - a
wagtail chasing sandflies with a hungry brood in tow; the oyster
catchers, ringed plovers and curlews, making the most of the rich
bounty uncovered by the ebb tide; the ducks, gulls and
cormorants patrolling offshore; the heron flying low
 over
the bay at dusk to poise patiently over a likely looking bed of
seaweed. Thank God we had no television reception, or we might
have missed the pair of otters, sharing a meal of freshly caught
fish on a favourite rock in the last of the light, or the seal
which appeared in the bay at the beginning of the flood tide in
search of an unwary sea trout. In my very amateur way, I
would seek to emulate the success of those expert fishers,
wading at dusk among the kelp beds with my fly rod as the tide
was turning. The sea trout was my intended quarry. We had seen
one or two leaping in the bay in the evening, so my hopes were
high..... and, after
all, the seals, otters and cormorants weren't there for nothing.
I saw a mackerel caught from the beach on a spinner. Alas,
 despite fishing each night into the darkness, I failed to catch
a sea trout, or even a mackerel. What I did catch, however, much
to my great surprise and delight, were two of the most beautiful
silver sea bass you could hope for. Now this was a first for me.
I had never before caught a bass. Indeed, I was unaware that
bass swam in these waters. Both were caught on fly around the
turn of the tide. They were not big, each measuring about twelve
inches long, but, as they say, size isn't everything. They were
returned to grow a little bigger.
Despite the endless seaside attractions, my
thoughts would return to the loch on the peninsula, the Corrie
Loch, Loch a Choire. I had spent an enjoyable few hours fishing
one or two other hill
 lochs in the area. A hike up to
Loch na Ba had produced twenty trout in an hour or two in the
most quiet and peaceful of settings. Lovely though they were,
none of those trout weighed more than five ounces. We had walked
out to the ruined settlement in Slaggan Bay, casting a fly on
Loch-na-h-Innse-Gairbhe and Loch an t Slagain on the way, with
similar results. But now it was time to revisit Loch a Choire to
see if it still held the kind of trout I remembered. I took
again the old Slaggan road and, after a mile or so, headed north
over peat and heather. The going was fairly easy and I soon
arrived at the wee loch, which lay just to the south of my main
objective. This loch looked promising and I had a few casts on
my way to the main loch but saw no sign of a trout. A few
strides farther brought me to the rocky south shore of Loch a Choire. All was quiet but for a group of divers way out in the
middle of the loch. A slight breeze ruffled the loch surface but
no trout were rising. I made my way steadily round the shore,
picking my way carefully over the rocks, making the most of the
light wind, which occasionally dropped enough to encourage the
unwelcome attentions of the dreaded midges. But it picked up
again and soon the first trout took me by
 surprise. It was
firmly hooked, though, and, after a spirited fight, which would
not have shamed a fish of twice the size, a beautiful trout of about
three quarters of a pound was drawn over the rocks. It had taken
the size 14 pink tailed Zulu and might have been the double of
the one I hooked twenty five years ago. I carried on round the
south shore, casting as I went in the variable light wind. All
seemed quiet. No trout broke the surface. Then, again out of
nowhere, a second trout, a shade bigger and stronger than the
first, took the tail fly, a size 12 pink tailed Zulu. You might
wonder at my unadventurous fly selection but I had found that,
despite the inclusion, from time to time, of a variety of
alternative patterns on the cast, the trout in the lochs
hereabouts seemed to like this fly.
And so, a long held dream had been
realised. Loch a Choire had not let me down. With a brace of the
most perfect loch trout in the bag, I made my way back down the
hill, well contented. An unforgettable day was rounded off by a
delicious meal of grilled trout, washed down with a bottle of
Cotes du Rhone...... and a dram or two. |
The Rubha Mor Peninsula, Wester Ross
Scottish Loch Flies
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