Upon Arrival
After helping the Scottish World Championship Fly Fishing team, they invited me to fish Scotland with them. Although I didn’t come at the most opportune time, I knew I would be able to catch a few fish. Weather wise this year, they are a few months behind. Unseasonably WINDY, cool and rainy weather plagued me my first 4 days. You might be thinking, “well that’s just typical Scottish weather…”, but you’d be wrong. This time of year, should be warm and sunny. I met my friend Dave Downie at the Glasgow airport and promptly went to his home, dropped off my things, had a slice, a cup coffee, and we went over a few things about what to expect. We stopped at the local tackle shop and bought my permit for the Cart River.
Scotland: Day One Fishing
A short drive and short walk to the River Cart and we were graciously greeted with olives hatching and several fish rising. Naturally, I tied on a dry fly and was immediately into a small, NATIVE brown trout! Part of my trip was complete within minutes of arriving to the river. The next task was landing a grayling. The river was fairly low and fishing dry dropper was the best way to tackle the conditions. I fished an indicator klinkhammer dry and a size 16 pheasant tail about 18 inches below the dry. About 100 yards upstream of where I started fishing, I found a nice seam where I thought there would be holding fish. Sure enough, on my first cast, I landed a grayling. In the first 15 minutes, I had landed both fish I came to Scotland to catch. The grayling was small-about 18cm, but it was my first European grayling. With the monkey off my back, I could relax a little bit and really enjoy what Scotland had to offer; not that there was much pressure to begin with, but I have wanted to catch a grayling for a while and I accomplished that in my first hour of fishing.
Scotland: Day Two
Dreary, wet, windy and cold. That is how I would describe the beginning of my second day in Scotland! Most of you would say “well that is typical Scottish weather!” Well, you’re right! It definitely was.
Dave and I were off to the River Clyde where I would try for some bigger fish. We observed rising fish as soon as we reached the water, but they were in a difficult to reach spot. I covered them with a dry and was refused. The wind picked up and almost forced us off the water. Nymphing was out of the question so it was back fishing a duo. The parts of the river where I found grayling were very deep and slow moving pools. I settled on a pool that was about 5 feet deep and set my dropper about 4 feet below my dry fly. After meticulously covering the water, my dry fly dipped. I struck and was hooked into something decent. The fish never came up and I knew immediately I had a large grayling. After a short but nerve racking fight, I had the fish in my net. I didn’t realize that it was as big as it was until I saw it in the net. 47cm of pure European grayling. Now this is what I came over here for! My trip was complete. I only caught one small grayling after that and eventually a rain storm forced us off the river.
After the rainstorm drove us off the river, we took a little road trip to the the mouth of the River Clyde. Port of Glasgow and Greenock, Scotland are two neighboring cities that are where the River Clyde meets the sea. There is so much tidal flow on the Clyde, that the tide will flow back upstream for over 40 miles. 40 MILES! We drove around the city to view a few of the sights. As we were driving around, parked near the port, were two Ford Sierra Cosworths. It is rare to see one, let alone two parked right next to each other, owners standing behind them. I regret not getting out and shooting a few images of the cars and their owners. After that it was back to the house after we picked up a curry and chips dinner.
