Memories of a Lucky Fisher
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:50
- Written by Bob Graham
“Better a lucky fisher than a good fisher,” goes the old cliché. Yes, I often feel that I’ve had some very good luck over the years. There are some really good fish that stick in my memory so well that I can almost replay the occasion.
The first was on the Tweed at Cardrona. I had crossed the railway bridge (yes there was one there) and was wading out as far as my wellies would allow,letting my worm run down the stream that runs in towards the road. My line stopped and I lifted my rod as I had been told. Suddenly a monster fish ran between my legs and up on to the shingle. I fell backwards in surprise, landed on the fish, then quickly struggled to my feet and kicked it up the beach. I grabbed it and ran up the bank to my dad shouting, “Look at this!” His first reaction was to knock it on the head, his second to carry it up to some bushes and hide it. How was a six year old to know that taking a thirty two pound salmon was illegal? I didn’t see that fish again until we reached home and I can tell you it was a beauty.
Just a few years later, while still at primary school, I was on the Clyde at Abington at the mouth of the Duneaton burn. There’s a lovely stream just down from the burn mouth that everyone else ignored but I cast my gadger out. I thought I had hooked the bottom, pulled to free the line and saw the yellow flash of a big brownie. That fish never had a chance against an eleven year old laddie and was on the bank in short order. Six pounds and five ounces – I know because it was weighed on the club scales. That one caused a right stushie on the bus but that’s another story.
Things went quiet for a few years while I learned a few tricks on the Almond (five minutes from home), the Breich at Fauldhouse and the Avon between Westfield and Avonbridge. There were memorable fish: a two and a half from the Breich, one almost on the four from the Avon and quite a few between two and four from the Almond, where I would spend ten hours every day during the school holidays. I still went out with the club and got to know the Tweed, Clyde, Tay and Earn well, although loch fishing never really interested me then, apart from Forrestfield (now Hillend) which was within easy cycling distance.
I left school and went to work, spending more time studying for qualifications than I ever had at school and fishing took a back seat. Then marriage and kids came along and fishing time was really curtailed. When the boys were old enough to have there own interests, I started again.
Up to the Clyde one day, at Wolfclyde, just down from Coulter burn mouth. My gadger (my favourite bait) was swimming down nicely and the line stabbed out. A quick strike and a good heavy fish was on and heading downstream. That one almost made the seven pounds. Then up to Loch Earn one day fishing the fly. A soft take on a size fourteen olive and I was into what turned out to be a fourteen pound brownie, the biggest trout I have ever taken. A few years later I joined the Hillend club and in my second year took a nine pound brownie on a size twelve Black Pennel. Two years later, I was fishing a size twelve hare lug at the big stone when something big took me. I didn’t see it until it jumped thirty yards out and my first thought was that, if I landed it, I would smash the loch record. I did land it but never made the record. It was a fourteen pound pike.
Back to Loch Earn again, fishing just up from the caravan site, and another big fish made off with my Black Pennel and twenty yards of backing. Ten minutes it took to beat that one, a twelve pound rainbow in perfect condition. Don’t ever criticise rainbows when I’m around.
Great memories for a lucky fisher. I just hope that my luck hasn’t run out.
Bob Graham is an occasionally lucky gentleman who claims he does not do very much these days other than try to catch trout five or six days a week. Bob is a regular at Hillend Reservoir and lives in Whitburn West Lothian.