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.

Salmon fishing on the River Oykel

Monday morning on the river Oykel. The water was perfect and the fish were running in numbers. You dream about days like this.

Gill and I were sharing a rod as guests of Andrew Pindar, chairman of the Pindar printing group, on the lower Oykel beats. The four beats are run by a consortium fronted by Mohamed Al-Fayed whose kilted waxwork dummy can be found in the shop at the nearby Falls of Shin.

They like Al-Fayed around these parts. He has donated computers to the local schools among other things. That kind of generosity can buy you a lot of tolerance for your kilted vanity. Who cares if there is not, as yet, an Al-Fayed clan tartan?

Osprey nests

So where is the Oykel? I had to ask this myself as I had never been so far north on the east coast. You drive (or fly) to Inverness at the head of the Caledonian Canal and just keep on going another hour, not far from Bonar Bridge.

The lodge, overlooking the river, had magnificent views of the hills where we often spotted golden eagles and ospreys on hunting forays. There are two osprey nests in the area and we spent the best part of an afternoon watching a pair with their fledglings.

That was after the spate when the river was shrinking to its bare bones. The spate itself had been running the previous week when the 12 rods on the four lower beats had caught 145 salmon and grilse.

Snapped line

So Monday was the tail end of the spate and we had to make the most of it. But it's hard to do your best when you reach a new river. We rose before breakfast and went to one of the best pools where Gill lost a fish. We should have skipped breakfast altogether but there was the morning organising to do - the allocation of rods and fishing spots. There is etiquette to observe as a guest and the first day on a new river is always strange for the newcomer.

The gillie took us back to the the same beat and with my second or third cast I felt a pull on the line. The next cast - a long one across the neck of the pool - produced a strong take and a thrashing fish. But after less than a minute it was away - with the hook.

Yes it took the hook. That shouldn't happen. Nothing wrong with the knot. The line had snapped. "Fluorocarbon? Bin it. It's a load of crap," said the ghillie. I tied on a new fly, pulled the line to test it and it snapped again.

This is not the first time I have heard a ghillie decrying fluorocarbon. Jimmy Barrett, who has a lifetime of fishing experience on the Tay where he ghillied on the Upper Scone beat, believes that fluorocarbon can be brittle and prone to nicking. Certainly it does not have the same give or stretch as nylon.

So I changed leaders. With almost the next cast I had a fish on again - a healthy 11 lb hen fish which put up a real fight and needed no revival as it was released. I handed the rod to Gill and within 10 minutes she was playing a grilse to the bank where she released it.



Trusted patterns

The lower Oykel fishings impose a 6-fish limit with no fish to be taken that are longer than 25 ins (about 7 lbs).

Without the breakage, without breakfast, we would have had more, really should have had more, but two fish in a morning isn't bad. Later in the afternoon I had another that came to a small plastic tube fly - stoats tail and silver. The others took either cascade or stoats tail and silver patterns, either size 10 or eight.

There is no need to fish too small when there's a good flow and there are fresh taking fish. Nor is there any need to be too choosy about fly patterns or methods. We simply used trusted patterns with double hooks on a straight cast.

Andrew Pindar hooks in to a grilse.

But when the fish stop running and you're trying for the "residents" in blazing sunshine the fishing gets a whole lot more difficult. We raised one or two on bombers and sunray shadows but couldn't get a take. Had it not been for the bright sunshine I think we might have had a few more fish. As it was we had seven fish to the three rods in the week and everyone who started the week had a fish.

I kept my second fish, a lovely 7-pounder and the first salmon I have killed for some years.

It seems churlish, however, to talk numbers on a river like the Oykel. It's a privilege enough simply to be there. Yes, in purely fishing terms, we are talking about feast and famine. But for variety and scenery it's hard to beat. I loved fishing the small pools above the Oykel Bridge where we could watch the fish leaping the falls. I probably spent as much time with the camera that morning as I did with the rod.

Hot and sunny

Rod-sharing was also fun, allowing time to think about the next session or read a book if the fishing is quiet. It's not often that you catch fish and improve on your tan in the same week. Those who holiday for the sunshine would never understand the game fishing mentality that greets a damp overcast morning with a sense of joy.

"Did you have good weather?" asked a neighbour when we returned.

"Terrible," I said with a shake of the head. "Hot and sunny every day."