Its a long drive from home to the far north of Scotland and after 9 hours and a couple of stops I arrived at the b and b at 5.00 pm yesterday. Dave was already at the accommodation and the other two arrived shortly after. We went to a local pub for something to eat and then a few drams back at the b and b and discussed tactics for the next days fishing. Phil and I would be fishing together and we had the services of a gillie our very own Ian. He is fishing Thursday/Friday/ Saturday but had decided to come up early and had brought his fishing kayaks to do a bit of spinning in the estuaries. The morning was blowing a gale and the sea very choppy so he had volunteered to carry the net for the day.
The morning session proved to be productive for my mate and I and we both landed a salmon and I lost two more and my mate lost three will one being a sizable fish that decided it wanted to return to the sea. The fish I caught was released in the water with a Ketchum quick release tool as I had no way of landing the fish on the bank. People who fish some of the far north spate rivers will understand and I had to lie on the rocks above the river and reach down with the release tool to unhook the fish. That will teach me to carry my net in future. Never a gillie on hand when you need one. We retired to the fishing hut at 13.00 am and had a nice lunch of cheese and ham toasties made over the gas stove flame and using a nifty piece of kit that Ian had discovered on the internet previously and had been purchased by a few of our group.
The afternoon session proved a bit of a chore as the temperature had risen and the overcast sky had been replaced by a cloudless sky with bright sunshine. After a long afternoon with temperatures in the low 20 deg. c we called it a day at 19.00 pm and retired to the pub for a meal and a much appreciated beer.
We met Chris and Dave at the pub and Chris informed us that he had landed two salmon but Dave had had a blank.
I had used my 8# Switch rod with a Danielsson CONTROL Reel loaded with a Rio SSVT line and using the floating tip. I think I will try using the rod with a Rio AFS 8/9 floating shooting head in the morning as this line has better presentation due to the more tapered front end.
Alans Fishing Blog 