Confessions
I fear there have been many occasions – and no doubt there will be more – when salmon have been deliberately gaffed or snagged out by frustrated fishermen anxious not to return to base empty-handed. Most culprits keep their secret to themselves for ever but John Noble, the owner of Ardkinglas Estate at Cairndow in Argyllshire, has sent me his delightful confession.
The day dawned bright with hope and anticipation. My cousin Iain and I were staying at Inverchorachan, an old disused shepherd’s cottage far up Glen Fyne. The Smiths, our fishing tenants on the Fyne, had asked us to join them on the top half of the river for the day. It had rained hard in the night and the river was falling. Everything felt right; confidence was high.
It was to be a fly-only day, I decided. I was nearly 15 and worming seemed too puerile to contemplate. An old flybook, leather bound, heavily strapped, carried my modest stock of flies, all recently purchased, and I felt sure that Margaret Smith, an expert fisherwoman, would approve of my choice.
I had been allocated the Cottage pool and the Midge. The Cottage was my best bet and I cycled the 1½ miles there in record time. When my first cast with a blue Charm wrapped itself round a stanchion of the bridge, I knew that my 8-foot greenheart, wielded with limited skills, would be fully stretched to cover the river, narrow as it was. And so, it proved. Somewhat deflated; I moved up to the Midge, where things were better. The usual cloud of insects which give the pool its name were cowed by the wind, and near the tail I hooked a fish. All went well until, with the fish coming to the gaff for the second time, the fly came out. Snivelling with disappointment, I made my way upstream to the Laraig pool where Iain and Margaret Smith were fishing. Iain had caught a 4-pound grilse and was trying the pool down again. ‘What a pretty line Iain throws,’ said Margaret. I agreed in a toneless voice.
Suddenly he was into another fish which turned out to be a fresh 8-pound salmon with sea-lice. No one could be less sincere than an empty-handed fisherman congratulating a friend flushed with success. ‘Great!’ I grunted as we ate our lunch-time piece.
My decision had already been made – back to the worm tin in the afternoon and to hell with the niceties. Yet all in vain. By the time the evening was on me no fish had done more than chew at my worm. Indeed, salmon parr had feasted freely on the bait, but there was no serious interest from adult fish. My last chance was the Pot, a resting place in the falls where fish can lie in numbers in a confined space. A choice, well-dangled worm often hooked a fish there with not too many questions asked. As I moved on to the rocky ledge close to the Pot I saw in the Split, just above it, an enormous tail break the water as a fish turned round in the nearest shallow end. The Split is little more than another ledge forming part of a natural salmon ladder up the falls. Never did Captain Ahab stare at Moby Dick with more excitement than I at that great wide tail as it disappeared again into deeper water.
A nefarious plan to save the day sprang to my mind. Putting down my rod, I whipped out my gaff and opened it fully. I sidled down to the Split over slippery rock, half-blinded by the spray, and peered forward as I was certain that the big salmon would turn round again. It did, and this time I could see half its massive back. Reaching far out with the gaff, I struck into the water just where I guessed its shoulder would be. It was no contest. If I had hooked my gaff round the tow bar of our tractor when it was doing 20 miles an hour it could not have been ripped from my grasp more effortlessly. There was a flash of broad silver flank and the monster had hurtled back into the Pot in the twinkling of an eye, gaff and all.
The next day, Charles Smith, worming in the pool below the falls, had a bite and played what he thought was a salmon for nearly a minute in the fast, deep water at the top of the pool. To his astonishment he discovered that he had, in fact, hooked my gaff. As this was his only excitement of the morning, he did not hide his irritation at my managing to ‘drop’ the gaff in the pool. Colin, our head deer stalker then gave me back the incriminating instrument still open, with an expression on his face which clearly said, ‘I ken fine what you were up to.’
Colin was a kind man and I knew that he would not ‘clype’ on me to my father, but I felt I had let him down badly. I had stooped to the basest of poaching methods – what shame and humiliation I felt. He must have noticed it because a day or two later he chose to tell me the true story of the capture of the Fyne’s record fish, the legendary 30-pounder. Of course, I knew this fish well. I had often admired, with awe, its portrait hanging in the porch room. It was a fish of enormous length. In front of its nose a large Jock Scott had been painted and the fish, to my youthful imagination anyway, seemed to have a faintly mysterious smile playing round its gills like some piscine Mona Lisa nursing a secret.
In the early 1920’s, so the story ran, my grandfather was staying with his family at Glen Fyne Lodge. It had been a cloudless 10 days and the nearest anyone had got to fishing was to make daily inspection of a monster fish lying halfway across Strutt’s pool in the little bit of deep water that the trickle of river provided. Long were the late-night debates about its size. Some thought about 20 Pounds; other, after three or four brandies, talked it up to 40. Bets were taken.
Although the sun continued to blaze, my grandfather surprised everyone one morning by going off fishing with old Archie MacCallum, Colin’s father. Within an hour they returned with Archie struggling under the weight of a formidable salmon. Hung on the scales in the larder it turned them at 30 pounds exactly. The largest fish every landed on the Fyne had just been taken.
Colin’s eyes twinkled as he told me, ‘It was caught on a whitefly. ‘I looked perplexed, so he explained the method. ‘You tie on a large treble hook and attach a small strip of white cloth above it. Then you wrap some lead wire close to the hook. You approach the bank gingerly until you see the salmon clearly and then cast out well beyond the fish without splashing. The white cloth lets you see where the treble is lying, and you steadily work it in as close as possible to the fish’s head. Then you strike sideways hoping to foul-hook the salmon somewhere around the gills.’
I was struck dumb. So, the revered grandfather, baronet of the realm, Balliol scholar, collector of old silver, public benefactor and, above all, catcher of the Fyne’s record fish had foul-hooked it – the Jock Scott in the picture notwithstanding.
A wave of relief washed over me, as wise Colin knew it would. Though Izaak Walton enjoins all true anglers to be ‘lovers of virtue’, it seemed that we are all human. Fishermen both old and young could stray from the straight and narrow. I felt a sense of companionship with this grandfather whom I had never known. My humiliation melted away.
If further proof of this unworthy deed was needed, leafing through an old notebook concerning family doings of the past some years ago, I came across a photograph of the 30-pounder with some gently mocking lines alongside it: –
He passed an uneventful day
Among the lesser fish:
Then met upon his homeward way
A monster on a dish.
He looked upon it with surprise,
And reeling up his line,
Said to himself “There may be flies
Even more dry than mine.’
It would probably be a mistake for anyone fishing the Fyne these days to risk fishing the worm, spinner or the white fly. Who can tell? The present laird may be much less human than was my grandfather.
Tails And The Unexpected, Confessions
Physical Description: Black And White Copy
Subject: Confessions, Fishing
