Grilse on the Oykel

Water conditions were perfect for Andrew Pindar's party on the River Oykel this year. But, for some reason, the fish were not running in the numbers that anglers have come to expect on this first class spate river.

The midges were out in force too, particularly on the highest of the Lower Oykel beats above the bridge. I love this beat with its short pools below the falls. To one side of the falls we witnessed one of the wonders of nature as thousands of young eels made their way up a wet sloping rock on their migration to the upper waters, all the way from the Sargasso Sea where they were born.

It was quite a big party and there was plenty of rod sharing but I found I could get in some early morning and late evening sessions. One early morning stint brought me two fresh run grisle, one from a long cast and the other from a long retrieve in quite slow water. Another came late in the evening after sneaking off from dinner on my last chance to fish above the falls.

I hadn't reckoned on the clouds of midges that were so thick they caught at the back of the throat. It was pretty miserable but I knew there was a fish to catch on the lip of the pool. It rose on my first cast, finned again after a quick change of fly, then took a third change of fly but shot off over the lip in to the next pool down where I couldn't follow.

A bigger fish might have been tough to get back but this one - about 5 lbs came back up over the small fall quite steadily. Almost everyone caught a fish and one or two were kept so we had salmon on the table one evening. Even in these days where catch and release predominates it's still good to eat your catch now and again, particularly on a river which can claim healthy stocks of fish.

So why were the numbers lower than expected? There was a rumour of Russian trawlers with big nets taking salmon out at sea but I don't know its veracity. We saw one of the local nesting pairs of ospreys had produced a chick but only one of the other pair had returned this year and it did not stay. We watched the active nest long enough to see an Osprey returning with a good sized fish, possibly a sea trout.

Gill had a nice fish on the last day. I had not been on my best behaviour, giving her a hard time over her casting and fishing a bit too intensively occasionally - certainly not relaxed about it - but this morning I left her to it on a nice run and sat in the car watching her cast. The Spey cast that brought her fish was perfection itself. I saw the take and came over to net it for her and she played it really well.

We reached double figures for the party in the week but it could have easily been twice that had the fish been taking better. There were a lot of pulls that never converted to takes.

Much is written on fly types and sizes but I think a variety of sizes of just three types is enough for most summer fishing in Scotland: stoat's tail and silver, Ally's shrimp and the Cascade. If I was to add anything it would be a plastic tube to fish riffle-hitched on the surface (as you would fish a sunray shadow) and maybe an Irish shrimp and something black or dark bodied. The rest of them - and believe me I have them all in my boxes - are really window dressing, sitting there as "try outs". That said it was one of these try outs - a variation of the stoat's tail that caught my fish above the bridge. When I looked at the fly next morning it was probably the tattiest specimen in the box,but there you go.

Sunray Shadow

I've written a piece on my web site about fishing the Sunray Shadow on the River Dee. There are also some notes about landing fish. If you need an assistant, take my advice, be careful about asking your better half! Click on the link in the text if you wish to read more.
 
The picture here shows how it can be done as Andrew Pindar has a salmon netted by his wife, Caroline on the Oykel. All smiles and calmness.