Canoes and fishing

Salmon stripping

cock at last

more kelts!

GREY BACK

broodstock fishing 2

Broodstock fishing

Note this was written 21-04-2006 but I like it so I'm going to post it anyway.

What, I imagine my enthusiastic readers are pondering, is going on. This pretence of a website is to be headed by real 'kipper' of a fish that should clearly have been returned. Well I have a tale or two to tell so read on..

I have indeed been fishing two or three times this season and have caught a rainbow trout (Hurrah, you may clap). I have also spent may ill gotten gains on a couple of days on the Tweed in an attempt to catch my first springer. Something I intend to draw out over the next couple of decades. I have never fished the Tweed and to draw a merciful vale over certain events let us call it a "middle beat".

Fishing a river as big as the Tweed is great fun. By the word "Big" I mean in comparison to our wee river where to cover most lies rarely wets your running line. Of course I love fishing wee rivers but I'm not averse to a bit of macho plastic whanging. Mind you chucking out 90ft or so of flyline seemed to be falling a little short according to my charming ghillie and if I really wanted a chance of a fish I should be spinning then you can really cover the water. My excuse was I was only using a 13ft rod give me a 15 footer and then, well that's a different story.. It was reassuring to see a few fish porpoising on their way up river. At least I knew that it was my ineptitude providing me a 'blank day' not the absence of fish. There is a rule on the Tweed that prohibits taking the first spring fish you catch (each day I presume) which more or less means you put all the fish back since two fish on a spring day seems somewhat unlikely. Now on day one a fellow spinning came sploshing across that river with this shiny fish, I says to the ghillie "has he had a couple?" Apparently not but an important guest was fishing upstream and would like to see a fish and the ghillie had dispatched it. This "springer" looked a little "strange" (the ghillie's words not mine). I can now disclose a little known secret some early spring run Tweed fish often have enlarged heads, damaged fins, straight bellies and even gill maggots*. Bet you never knew that. The fish caught by the spinner on day two was returned and I asked the ghillie if it was a "strange salmon" as well. With a turn of the head he said it was "no it wasn't a strange salmon".

Some salmon get away and some, don't. Mostly I suppose fish are killed when kelts or in spawning colors through ignorance. This brings me to the Salmon pictured above whether it was a clever or ignorant fish I know not, but I do know the fisherman was pretty stupid and has moved on only slightly since the unfortunate event (1983 or thereabouts). For reasons obscured by history the photographer omitted the captors face, spotty as it was this was probably a blessing. This is/was my first salmon. It was caught on the very river I fish today (although a little further from the sea than where I fish now). He was trapped in the pool we used to swim in down below the local garage. My friend had bunked off school and spent the whole day trying to catch him, using all the methods he could think of, (legal and illegal methods didn't really come in to our vocabulary till many years later). I remember coming down after school with the carp rod I had built and watching the fish come up and roll in the weak tea colored water, sparkling in the sunshine. I chucked out various bits of plastic and metal but had no joy, then digging around in the bottom of my bag I found something that looked intriguing. The Garage owner had an apprentice whose grandfather was a keen fisherman. A few days previously the apprentice who I shall call Adam because that's his name had let me rummage in his grandads tackle box and out of curiosity I had plucked out a hollowed out and varnished sort of mummified prawn. Adam said I could keep it if I gave him any fish I caught on it. First cast with this thing probably 50 years old then and I hooked the salmon pictured above. I was desperate to keep the salmon and conscious of the my close proximity to the garage scuttled off. I seem to remember the desiccated prawn was crushed and never came out to play again.

I'm still good friends with Adam and perhaps I owe him a salmon but since he is a vegetarian nowadays probably a bottle of wine would go down better and we could toast the discovery of the "strange" Tweed springer.



*To the uninitiated these are all signs of a "Kelt" a salmon that has spawned and is returning to the sea. By law when caught they must be returned.

Most angling magazines are predominantly eye candy shopping guides. Like the man who buys penthouse, we persuade ourselves that these magazines have some worthy merit, but actually our eyes just pop out at pictures of fish we will never catch in locations we can't afford and prosthetic shiny bendy things that will extend our reach (we are told). Harmless fun I suppose and I have been known to indulge between the glossy pages now and then. There is a dark side though. Occasional attacks of the tackle monster can affect the best of us. I was once told that the fish don't know what's at the other end of the line. Makes sense really since if they did know it was some expensive plastic and metal then me, they probably would avoid grabbing the end with the hooky thing even more than the do already when I'm fishing. Fisherman can be divided up into three categories each more or less immune to the tackle monster (of fisherwoman I know little and wish to say less).

Firstly there is the fisherman who has tackle to fish with. He never buys another rod until the one he has got has been run over by a truck, twice. If he is forced renew tackle he will find the cheapest serviceable tackle he can get whether it is old or knew matters not. This man is never found in a tackle shop and never buys magazines. His approach has nothing to do with wealth or lack of it he just fishes to catch fish and can do so with any reasonable tackle. He also catches twice as many fish as anyone you know.

Secondly there is the athletic fisherman. His tackle is performance related, he cares a lot about what he fishes and like a violinist wants the best tackle he can afford in order deliver his best performance. He reads tackle reviews assiduously and can often be found in tackle shops especially if they allow onsite testing. He catches less fish then the first fisherman (since he spends to much time casting and not enough fishing), but still does ok, and can look quite impressive at least to himself.

Lastly there is the collector. This man is a noble creature who finds the tackle almost an end in itself. Living in a slightly more ethereal realm with faint whiffs of light oil and varnish, his tackle is more important than the fish he catches on it. His main habitat is in particular tackle shops. He occasionally buys magazines but prefers a good auction catalogue by far. He catches the least fish of our three.

Which am I? Well I guess like most of us a little bit of each, and I don't suppose it matters anyway. I judge fishing by the pleasure it gives me, and each one of my stereotypes gets just as much fun out of their fishing. Who is to say that 'bagging up' in an hour is any more fun than snicking a fish out of that difficult lie under the trees with a snake roll and a shooting head or spending all day catching a 6 inch brownie on a old cane rod you found in a garage and restored to its original glory, not I!