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Building Blocks

Our October 2002 contribution from Lesley Crawford

I had another birthday recently, not a terribly significant one you understand just another year spent getting older, madder, more forgetful and maybe just a little wiser. I spent the day guiding an American visiting angler around one of my favourite Caithness lochs. The sun did not shine, the wind was soft and warm and the trout rose magnificently to mayfly and sedge. My charge caught some beautiful trout, I did likewise and two happy bunnies skipped along the shore full of the joys of angling.

Birthdays are always contemplative times and since this type of wilderness trout fishing offers plenty of opportunities for reflection I took a little time to ponder some turning points in a fishing career of over 40 years. Fishing runs like a compelling thread through my life beginning as it did with a jam jar and a little green net fishing for sticklebacks in a burn in the Campsie Fells near Glasgow. Worm fishing with a clear green stubby fibre glass rod came next and as a family we would holiday at Brora where I would dibble a worm down a tiny burn. My first trout was thus hooked then I progressed to trundling a sunken black fly down the burn in similar unskilled but enthusiastic fashion and that too caught trout. Oddly enough I still occasionally pass by that hallowed burn as 40 years later - in a strange quirk of fishing fate - my own family in Caithness now live relatively near it.

Burn fishing - one of the best ways to introduce anglers to the sport

In any type of angling that life event of a first fish always sets the tone for the future. If you discount the sticklebacks - exhilarating though these were to a 3 year old - the thrilling, compulsive little tug from that beautifully marked first wild brown trout made an indelible mark upon my 8 year old psyche. I was hooked right in the scissors. However, Rome was never built in the proverbial day and my fishing career then took many twists and turns. Like many others before me I went through phases of wanting to catch the most fish possible in a day, then I wanted the largest fish in the water and after that a trout in the most difficult of circumstances.

If I were to pick out just a few of the most memorable milestones they would be begin with my late father's encouragement in helping me learn about different species of fish i.e. sea, coarse and game while still living near Glasgow. Dad was quite meticulous in teaching me the right way to go about things, sometimes overly so as his expectant charge still remembers hopping impatiently from foot to foot when explanations got too long! Even if he could not help he would buy fishing books and bits and bobs of tackle. 'Trout & How to Catch Them' by Adamson became a bible. Without his initial guidance I would not have taken nearly as much interest so I owe him a deep debt of gratitude.

Brora Ranger - catching a trout on a fly made by yourself is a delight

Over the years various building blocks fell firmly into place especially with the catching of brown trout on my own home made flies as opposed to shop bought ones. I felt extraordinarily proud that I had fooled a wild creature with my very own creation, learning how to tie nice looking flies was one thing but making them work was quite another. The capture of a first Caithness trout not long after we arrived here in 1984 was another dramatic incident etched sharply into my memory. Never having fished in Caithness (as opposed to Sutherland) I was mighty proud of my lonely tentative efforts on the windswept banks of Loch Calder. Trout are trout wherever they reside but it still made me feel more as if I belonged in this wild beautiful land.

Coming to the Far North gave me a unique opportunity to learn about wild brownies and I soaked up any and all local fishing information like rain falling on the sphagnum moss of the Flows. Fabulous trout lochs like Watten, St Johns and Calder along with many other no less fertile waters litter the county. If I had not fished it I wanted to, if I'd fished it and caught zero I wanted to know why, if I'd been successful I wanted to go again. Caithness fishing is never dull but it's never easy either. Many days were fruitless blank struggles in gales and rain (less still are!) but I was continually learning from those experiences. More importantly I built up a raft of knowledge not only about fishing techniques (notably the practical uses of both dry and wet fly) but also about wild trout in general. I recorded the year long diet of trout and their feeding behaviour at certain times of year, caught sea trout in the sea, fished ridiculously out of the way places which took half a day just to reach and observed natural spawning in the dark months of October and November when other fishers were safe by their firesides. Of course others had done this before me but that did not lessen the experience, I still felt like a bold pioneer exploring a wild and empty fishing landscape.

Contemplation

Much of this hard won knowledge is now in my books but even now I still find myself learning something entirely new or at least seeing it in a different light. For example, in early August this year I was busy catching trout and big ones at that in a dense mist, something a decade ago I would have scoffed at as well nigh an impossible task. Whether it was the attractiveness of the Claret Bumble or the shallowness of the water I do not know but large trout were caught and returned in the mirk neatly confounding all those past theories. And despite becoming more knowledgeable, hard bitten even, that initial enthusiasm still burns as brightly within. When my sons Andrew & Ewan caught their first trout I stepped back in time for a fleeting moment and saw myself in their excited faces. Cartwheels on the bank might have been an option if age, waders and waxed jacket had not prevented it!

Fishing for trout in a wild environment was (and still is) one of the most fascinating, exciting and demanding pursuits I could ever do. Though dalliances have been made with other sports nothing even comes close to matching its all round intensity of involvement. It binds and enriches my life. Next year I reach half a century on the planet and guess what, I'll probably be out fishing!

About Lesley Crawford

Lesley has fished for brown trout and sea trout from a very early age and her enthusiasm for these beautiful Scottish fish shows no signs of diminishing. She is well known as a leading angling writer and photographer with prodigious articles in a wide range of publications including Salmon Trout & Sea Trout and the Scotsman.

Lesley is a REFFIS qualified fishing guide and arranges bespoke wild trout angling holidays in the Northern Highlands. Her first major book 'Fishing for Wild Trout in Scottish Lochs' (Swan Hill 1996) was a runaway success and the long awaited follow up 'Scotlands Classic Wild Trout Waters' (Swan Hill) was published in 2000. Order your copy now. Read more about Lesley at www.wildtroutfisher.co.uk