Last year we had a family trip to the Scottish Highlands and on a whim we bought our little boy an Abu Garcia telescopic fishing outfit and a few little Mepps and the like to fish the Rannoch Moor lochs. It was the middle of August, the sun beat down from a cloudless blue sky and on both days we fished, he blanked. So did daddy to be fair, despite hammering away with all my favourite loch fly patterns. We were so proud of his perserverance, he never became dispondent and kept up his enthusiasm at all times. An example I should surely try an emulate! This year, we took him to a local commercial coarse lake armed with a whip rod and seat box donated by an angling friend of ours who is no longer with us. We wanted him to get his string pulled and he most surely did, caning out silvers on maggots all afternoon! I hope Andy was looking down on us.
This year we returned to the Highlands with more fishing tackle and a building air of excitement – the family holiday had morphed into a fishing holiday! Our first trip was an evening session chucking some jig heads into Loch Leven off the Loch Leven Hotel slipway for an hour or so. I have to confess I haven’t got much of a clue when it comes to fishing for anything that lives in the briny depths and we caught nothing. Mental note, buy some weedless jigs.
Our next trip was a return to Rannoch Moor and we headed straight to Nachalaise (deliberate misspelling). If it wasn’t for the infernal traffic noise and the litter this would be right up there as one of Scotlands nicest looking lochs with the spectacular Black Mount as a backdrop.
We came upon 3 anglers wading waist deep in the loch and they were having some success with the wild browns. Encouraging!
We moved further around the loch and then had a session with my son and partner spinning and me on the fly. I eventually got a couple of brownies and let him hold the rod briefly, followed by holding the fish for a photo.
I then decided to push on to Buidhe and see how ge got on there. We got plotted up and my partner got to try out my brand new Helinox chair and catch her first wild brown trout on a little Mepps! That was a bit of a false start though, the fish were definitley much more on the fly than spinner and I began casting out a long way andhanding him the rod to retrieve in the manner shown. He soon got the hang of it and although he initially missed a few offers he eventually struck into a fish and we landed it together and he had caught his first brownie on the fly! Very proud parents.
The following day we fished over on the other side of the road. Man that road. It’s noisy, and bloody lethal. We worked our way along the Southern shore with me on the fly and those 2 alternating between a bubble float with fly outfit and a spinning rod with Mepps.
I must hasten to add the trebles were cut down to just one single hook. This mixed method angling proved to be a bit of an eye opener to be honest. The number of times I’ve been fly fishing either alone or with mates where we’ve mused that if only we had a spinning outfit/bubble float rig we’d be absolutely caning them out compared to the fly. It’s bollocks! The fly was outfishing the other methods comprehensivley. I caught a few brownies but they were not having much luck until towards the end of our session he got into a fish and when I came over to help I saw he’d hooked a lovely perch!
He was mega excited and proudly claimed the biggest fish of the day.
Our final fishing session the following day was on a loch which I shall not name for various reasons but we all caught some lovely little brownies despite the dreadful weather and it rounded off the fishing component of the holiday perfectly.
