My wee Burn
- Details
- Published on Thursday, 31 May 2007 05:53
- Written by Bob Graham
I know exactly when I first fished this burn – June 1951. Just passed my qually, off to the big school in August and, for the first time, allowed to go out of town fishing on my new bike. Now this wasn't my home burn – that was over the back fence and a couple of hundred yards away – but I was big enough and old enough to need some variety and experience some new waters.
By the end of that season I knew every stream, pool and ripple in something like four miles of water. And I caught fish, some of them good ones over ten inches long.
I fished there regularly until the mid-60s and discovered how to keep the bigger fish on the hook long enough to land them. As I remember my best was around two and a half pounds, a big fish from a wee burn. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I usually fished the worm, grub and minnow. Too many men see this a a boyish aberration and a part of growing up. Well, maybe I've never grown up and I still maintain that it takes an awful lot of skill and ability to drop a bait in exactly the right place using an eight foot fly rod.
Eventually I drifted away from wee burns. I don't know why, it just happened. Maybe it was easier to head off the the Clyde or the Tweed or the Tay and have a pint or two on the way with the mates. I'll leave that to the psychologists. The burns suffered as well. This particular one was poisoned several times by open cast mining during the late 60s and 70s. Then, last year, I came back. A nephew of mine bought a house only a couple of hundred yards from it and I took a walk down one day and noticed a couple of rises. Now there's temptation and I came back a few days later with the rod.
There were a few very unsuccessful trips and I was ready to write off the experience to nostalgia until a perfect wee broonie launched itself at my Black Spider and stayed on – all of six inches it was. I began to experiment and re-learn long forgotten lessons. Then one day it all came together, pinkie tail worms fished upstream were magnets for these wee fish and I hooked about ten, landed six and found myself three miles from my start. Magic, but still a serious problem. A pensioner wandering around in the early morning picking up, specific worms, attracts attention and after a couple of encounters with the local, and not very understanding, constabulary I realised that I had to find other fishing methods.
I think I've cracked it, Woolly Buggers and Clouser Minnows, especially with a bit of flash in them. The wee troots love them. I had my best ever day last week, fifteen fish with the biggest about a pound. Mind you that was in over four miles of water and six hours fishing but I'm not complaining. I take the 'bus to (?1) and fish down to (?2) and catch a 'bus home. And I know that I can 'bus it to (?2) and fish to (?3) and 'bus it home again. Ten magic miles of fishing happiness – and I've never met another soul. I'm the Peter Pan of fishing.
Where is it? If you can work it out from the pictures you're welcome as long as you remember to leave things as you find them, and that includes the troots. And don't tell anybody else.
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.