The Mighty Gladhouse
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 31 July 2007 07:28
- Written by Stuart Harper
You may have read the recent articles in Trout & Salmon where Stan Headley and friends go trophy trout hunting; well this activity is not reserved for the professional angler / fishing writer. The following is the 1st part of 3 adventures by intrepid trout trophy-hunters Harpo & Ricardo and their search for monster fish from various waters in Scotland, here they search the murky depths of Gladhouse reservoir one early May evening:-
After a punishing work schedule the two anglers arrive at Gladhouse for 3.30. It was most disappointing to note that we had no signal on our work mobile phones so for the rest of the working day we would have to be “missing in action”.
There was a palpable murmur of excitement from the local wild life as the two illustrious trophy-hunters tackled up and set afloat in the famous trout hunting boat “#4”, they certainly looked the part in Shakespeare waistcoats adorned with snippers, gink and enough fly boxes to start a tackle shop, but would they be able to match it in skill? The craft was berthed up the top end far away from the boat house which was good as we had never explored this part of Gladhouse before as we could never be arsed rowing that far, no electric engines for these purists, or should that be fools?!?
The weather was mixed, the sun was bright coming from the west however there was a fridge like wind that Whirlpool or LEC would be proud of coming right out of a big dirty patch of East Coast fog/mist/harr. I hate harr with a vengeance, many a pleasant summer's day/evening has been cursed by the stuff. Also being an Edinburgh/East-Coast boy it pains me that while we’re stuck in the grey cold our friends in the west are basking in full sun and blue skies. Anyway this cold easterly straight from Siberia seemed to have killed the fishing as we never saw any rise nor did we have a touch on the teams of wet flies that we hopingly pulled through the water. We tried all the usual suspects, Kate McLarens, Claret Bumbles, Zulus, Alexandria’s etc etc etc on both floating and intermediate lines but nothing. There was even one scary moment when I almost opened the “fly” box that I keep stashed in the bottom of my bag with the Stockie Lures in it to use some of them, luckily Ricardo managed to talk me down and we kept with the traditionals.
Apart from the polar wind the conditions were lovely, long drifts along the bank keeping close to the margins and the boat drifting as if we had pre-programmed it. Later on about 7.30 the wind seemed to drop a bit and we saw a couple of small fish move…well quite big fish to us actually!...just then out of the blue I got a great take and my rod bent right over “fish on” I proclaimed to the whole of Midlothian….my next two words probably cursed the whole event “proper fish”….then…ping….my rod straightened and it was off. I will not repeat any of the words that I said in the next 5 minutes! However I was glad that the fish had managed to shake the hook and it was not lost down to poor knot tying etc. We both had another couple of tugs/takes where we exercised our new style of catch and release which I will explain here. Firstly you hook a fish, strike and play it for about two seconds, and when you have decided that enough fun has been had and using only the power of the mind you let the fish go. This benefits the fish and angler, the fish as it never leaves the water and is un-touched by human hand, the angler as you don’t get wet/cold/stinky fish hands whilst still revelling in the huge satisfaction of hooking a fish and never seeing it! Anyway back to the action, Richard had one a good bite and a scrappy wee ½ pounder on a black Zulu (that’s a monster for us and I was almost scared to touch it in case it bit me!). We netted it, just as well I had brought along the carp net and I tapped it on the head as I do like the taste of trout and fancied it for my brekkie.
A few casts later and I had another one of these Gladhouse monsters on a Green Tailed Kate McLaren which I just managed to lift into the net it was probably all of 1/4 lb and certainly made me glad that I had decided on the #7 rod, I let this one go as I don’t have a big enough frying pan for such a specimen.
Then the wind got up again, the arm straining action ceased and we were back to our favoured activity of casting out a team of wet flies and then racing them back to the boat. We decided that it was time to head off and we savoured the long row back into the wind back to the bay…the dock of the bay in fact. We waved jubilantly to the two guys with the electric out-board, they don’t know what there missing I thought to myself as we powered on, feeling like Ben Fogle and James Cracknell rowing the Atlantic, except we had clothes on, in fact lots of them!.
Obviously the above is a bit of a piss-take at ourselves. Gladhouse is indeed a lovely place to spend an evening and I’m sure if the weather had been better we would have had a great evenings sport. Being so close to Edinburgh and in very natural surroundings it is certainly somewhere that I will be back to. The nature at Gladhouse is also varied and interesting last year a breeding pair of Osprey’s were in attendance and there is also a great deal of other bird life fluttering about over head. The £30.00 for the boat may seem quite steep but when I think back to what I used to pay for stockie bashing at a hole in the ground it puts it into context. There are also very good facilities with changing room; toilet, life jackets (I sit on mine to save my bum from the wooden boat seats!) and the boats are in good nick. There are some worrying rumours about the future of Gladhouse, stocking with Rainbows etc, I for one hope it stays as it is.
Drew Kirk looks after the fishing and can be contacted on 01875 830 262.
Stuart Harper (Harpo), 31 years old, has been fly fishing since 2005 and has now graduated from stocky bashing to wild trout fishing.
Gradually gaining fishing expertise, he loves the day out as much as catching fish....which is probably just as well.
He is also partial to a bit of Mackerel bashing off the West Coast in the summer and chucking the odd lure for pike, in fact any fishing that doesn't involve sitting in the same place for ages.
Married to wife Sasha for two and half years, she doesn't really understand this new pastime and thinks that it's all a bit odd!