A Short History of Loch Style Fishing
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- Published on Sunday, 01 July 2007 06:07
- Written by Lesley Crawford
Scottish loch skills are as enduring and timeless as the waters they are practised on. Wild brown trout or sea trout are the normal quarry and these canny creatures have to be angled for with specialist tactics as the fish do not tend to give themselves up easily. So let’s take a look now at how `loch style’ has evolved and grown to its current highly popular status.
Dapping
Dapping a fly is the oldest Scottish fly fishing technique. Initially it was a skill born out of necessity as the first rods for both still and moving water were very heavy affairs up to 20ft or so in length. With this equipment it was not so much a question of making a cast as just hoisting the rod upright and letting the wind blow the line with flies attached out on to the water. Records on dapping go back to the 16th century if not earlier, making this technique essentially the first fly rod skill ever used on loch or river however while dapping on streams is now obsolete, dapping on lochs has remained a very successful technique right to this day.
To dap successfully modern anglers still use a long rod perhaps 12 to 15ft in length (often the rod is telescopic for ease of transportation) with a light floating line on to which is attached a length of dapping floss roughly the same length as the rod if not a little longer. This floss is very light and easily billows out in the wind. At the end of the floss a short length of tippet of 6lbBS or so is attached and a bushy well hackled dapping fly like the Black Palmer, Red Palmer, Badger and Loch Ordie is added. These flies are used in size 8`s or 10`s and the idea is to fish a traditional drift in the boat, hold the rod bolt upright and let the wind skip and dip the fly across the water surface just like a natural insect being blown across the loch. Wild trout will suddenly appear from nowhere to lunge at the fly and try and drown it sub surface. Though other loch techniques have grown more popular, dapping aficionados can still be found on the big highland lochs like Hope or Loyal perhaps driven by the huge element of anticipation which follows this ancient technique.
The Wet Fly Approach
With the advent of lighter shorter rods pioneered largely by Scots angler W C Stewart in the mid 1800`s, Scottish loch fishing advanced from simple dapping to physically working the wet fly by casting and retrieving. On still water this is what is described as `loch style’ and this cornerstone technique has remained largely the same for two centuries. Teams of flies (in the old days up to 12 flies now more conservatively 2 or 3 flies) are used on a short line which is cast methodically in front of the angler from boat or bank. The team is worked back to the angler on a medium to fast retrieve so that the flies remain in the top surface layer of water not much more than about 3ft down. Just before lifting off to cast again the top dropper fly is dibbled across the water to create a trout attracting wake. The theory behind this multiple fly method is to fool the trout into thinking there are numerous escaping insects or small fish dashing past his nose and hopefully he will want to hunt one of them down before they disappear.
Today typical modern equipment for working a team of wets would be a 10ft carbon rod with tip to middle action, floating line WF7 is pretty standard, 4lbBS leader and a selection of loch favourites along the lines of the Zulu, Butcher, Soldier Palmer, Invicta, Kate McLaren, Hoppers and Bumbles. This set up is equally effective whether you are boat or bank fishing and remains in standard use throughout Scotland.
Modern Loch Style
While dapping and wet fly lie at the heart of loch style, nowadays we see both nymph and dry fly also employed. Modern nymph fishers might assume that the technique of nymph fishing on stillwaters often used for rainbow rather than indigenous brown trout is a comparatively new practise. In actual fact right from the 1800`s Scottish wet fly design has frequently lent itself to nymph fishing. W C Stewarts Spider patterns designed at first for stream fishing but subsequently universally used on any water loch or river, were predominantly excellent representations of nymphs. Fishing the nymph is not that much different from traditional wet fly fishing except the flies are fished deeper often on an intermediate rather than floating line and the retrieve is slower so that the nymphs rise and fall in the water just like the natural insect. Popular modern favourites for this method of angling include amongst many the Hares Ear Nymph, Pheasant Tail, Black Spider and Olive Nymph.
It’s a similar story of history unknowingly repeating itself in the use of dry fly on the lochs. Scottish loch anglers of old were effectively using patterns which were fished as they fell. In other words a bushy fly like a Black Palmer might float when first cast out especially if a firm hackle was used in the flies construction. Essentially this was using a `dry’ fly on the loch albeit not one designed as an exact representation of an insect. Unlike the very detailed dry fly designs which Halford and his contemporaries came up with in 19th century England, Scottish loch flies were essentially practical beasts made to stimulate an aggressive rather than a feeding response from the trout. In the 1920`s Scots angler R C Bridgett became something of a pioneer of dry fly loch fishing ensuring for posterity that a sunk wet fly was not the only way to tackle the big lochs. He advocated a practical flexible approach to loch angling recognising the need for wet fly dry or nymph as the conditions demanded. His favourite choice of dry flies when the trout were surface feeding included the Rough Olive, Dry Greenwells and dry Cinnamon Sedge. These he fished on a floating line with a slow retrieve and these simple tactics are just as well used today as they were then. Today modern loch fishers use a broad range of dry fly patterns with newer designs like the Grey Wulff or the Adams sitting easily beside the older flies.
Even from this short resume of the development of loch style skills we can see that while for loch fishing the equipment may be more sophisticated and is certainly more easy to use, the basic tactics remain set in tradition. However the modern angler’s willingness to experiment with different concepts switching between dry fly and wet with consummate ease also works greatly to his advantage. If you have not tried Scottish loch fishing for wild trout, with over 35000 lochs out there, it’s an opportunity too good to miss.