My best years trouting were definitely when I was in my early teens. Sadly the intervening years have fogged much of the specific detail of these days and created a melange of memories, with threads here and there leading to tangles like a birds nest in a spool of leader material. It’s true, too, that everything in life was rosier then. Summers were warmer, birds sang sweeter and more loudly (this may of course actually be true as many studies have shown a huge decline in wild songbirds since the seventies, but I’m sure you’re following the point) and most of all, the fish rose freely in pristine streams.
To be honest though, in most of central Lanarkshire where I lived the waters were anything but pristine. The torrents of sludge and human detritus mixed with heavy industrial pollution from the many steel mills centred around the Motherwell area ensured that the rivers were pretty much lifeless. One of them, the small River Calder, occasionally ran a bright, pastel blue colour. That was on the odd days when it wasn’t running an Amazonian brown. We used to swim in it; well, you could actually describe it as less like swimming and more like going through the motions. The things you do when you’re a kid.
The closest you could get to “clean” water on the River Clyde started above the big industrial polluters of Motherwell and, more specifically, above a place called Netherton where the last of the big sewage plants discharged. From there on up, the grayling were to be found and thereafter the trout. In later years, I have read that grayling actually need cleaner water than do trout, but this wasn’t my observation at that time I have to say.
Things have changed a lot, of course, and the decline in heavy industry in central Scotland has meant that the water quality has improved immensely. So much so, that salmon and Sea trout now run these rivers. Nature has a high bounce.
I used to trek to the River Clyde every Saturday and almost every Sunday too. In those days, fly fishing books and bus timetables formed the bulk of my bedtime reading. I studied all of the possible routes to the river, matching all of the times of the relevant services. Inevitably, it was the earliest bus, no matter the route and equally inevitably it was any route back to the town of Wishaw at night because the bus stop was next to the fish and chip shop, exactly what I needed after a long days fishing – what passes for Scottish Soul Food.
It also stopped next to a music shop and I could gaze, longingly, at an electric guitar that I badly wanted. Rock music would be my other main focus in life for many years, but at that stage I didn't have any money and neither did my folks nor anyone else that I knew. Money was a scarce thing back then and even an “average” income of today seemed like a fortune in those days, much in the same way that a 1lb trout from the River Clyde seemed like a record breaker. Times have changed, with a degree of polarity in terms of the benefit of larger disposable income versus the benefit of larger average trout size.
I recall one night waiting at the bus stop, bag of chips in my hand, and being approached by an older fisher. There were always lots of fishers at bus stops in those pre-car-for-every-household days. They would have their thigh boots rolled down to their knees and be festooned with landing nets and rods and wading sticks and rucksacks. It must have been a nightmare for the other bus passengers as we all traipsed on, scything our way down the aisle. For many years I sported a custom made rod bag (made of course by my mum) which had a huge sack-like bit at the bottom for all the gear and a tie-on slim top bit that covered the tops of the rods. It looked, for all the world, like a gun case and I was eyed strangely on more than one occasion by policemen and asked all the time what I had shot that day. I can’t decide whether it was just my mum’s practical approach to the problem of transporting rods and reels or whether she just had a wicked sense of humour.
But anyway, this old guy asked me how I’d done and I proudly showed him my supermarket plastic carrier bag with three small brownies swilling about in the bottom. “No bad” he says and then he opened an old white sack he was carrying which was literally stuffed with fish. There must have been 30 or more trout in there. He’d caught them, it transpired, on a tributary of the River Tweed called the Lyne and it was decades later before I discovered this small river. It is pretty, but you wouldn’t expect it to hold that quantity of harvestable fish and I strongly suspect that it doesn’t anymore.
I have to wonder, now, what the other passengers thought of the stink of so many dead fish plonked next to them for the journey home, but at the time I was suitably impressed and not a little embarrassed that I had been so comprehensively outgunned by an old guy with a bait rod. It wouldn’t be the last time for that emotion either; fly fishing snobbery can strike at any age and it doesn’t always fill the creel.
Back then, I had a couple of friends that fished; John “Titch” Mitchell, and sometimes my own brother John would tag along, but mostly I fished alone. Tom McGuane wrote that there is a difference between loneliness and solitude, and young though I was (although I hadn’t even heard of Mr McGuane at that time) I already knew that to be true. All the fun of fishing with a buddy was on the way there, on the bank when tackling up, at lunch and, finally, on the way home. That was it. The rest of the day was simply a personal pleasure; at least it was for me. Still is, truth be told.
To be honest, I can only really recall fishing with Titch and my brother through those years, although there were, I’m sure, others around. I was even a member of a school fishing club, but I can’t for the life of me recall any of the other members and apart from the very rude art teacher who looked after the club, it’s all a bit of a blank. That’s embarrassing to a degree, because I constantly read about how fishing is great for building lasting and memorable friendships. At that time, that bit at least seems to have missed me out.
One of the bus drivers on the main route up the scenic Clyde valley became friendly with me. He was a garrulous, ginger-headed chap whose name now escapes me. He would let me ride up at the front of the bus with him, chatting all the way along the winding route by the river. He would also ask what time I was coming home to make sure that his bus waited if I wasn’t at the stop exactly on time. Hard to imagine that happening today and, sadly, any adult taking so much interest in the comings and goings of a teenage boy would also nowadays be viewed with great suspicion. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any parent letting a twelve or thirteen year old boy head off at daybreak on his own, to return god-only-knows when. I mean, we didn’t even have a home telephone in those days far less the ubiquitous modern-day mobile phones, without which no child is allowed to venture a hundred yards from their front door. The world is indeed a changed place.
I can’t remember exactly how I found it, but at one time or another I stumbled upon the little River Mouse and became an instant addict. When I say “river”, I am describing a body of water that you can literally jump over in certain places. But then I had it largely to myself, at least at first, as most of the “serious” fishers would stick to the main River Clyde. You did get the occasional other angler coming over to fish there and I do have a very strong recollection of one arrogant sod who gave me some abuse before marching into the pool in front of me, casting as he went, and spooking all the trout in the process. He claimed to be an official of the Angling Association. He didn’t catch a thing, serve him right.
The Mouse joins the River Clyde in the village of Kirkfieldbank which lies below the market town of Lanark. There was, and possibly still is, a caravan site at the meeting of the two and there was a little shop where I’d visit and stock up on sweets and juice to supplement my lunch rations. The woman who owned the shop lived in the caravan next door and she was always happy to see me, chatting away to me in a motherly sort of way.
Of course, I was a "proper" fisherman now - dry fly only unless the conditions dictated otherwise. As I said earlier, I had learned all of my technique from books on chalk-stream fishing – the complete the opposite of the Mouse environment but I wasn’t to know that. So I searched in vain for years for a Mayfly hatch, but the nearest thing was the small Olives and the fewer, but larger, March Browns, with the odd sulphur-bright Yellow Sally which sailed majestically down the streams in late May or early June.
Nowadays, American fishing writers refer to all upright winged aquatic flies as mayflies, but back then a Mayfly meant the inch long white creatures that inhabited the chalk-stream and limestone waters in the South of England (and, paradoxically, the limestone lochs of Northern Scotland around Durness). Of course, I had read of the so-called “duffers fortnight” when trout as long as your arm would come out of their hidey-holes to feast on Mayflies and so could be caught by anyone. I wanted some of that. However it was not to be, not on the Mouse at least.
I also learned to tie my own flies, mostly out of necessity as shop tied ones cost so much, and the simple spider patterns of the Clyde suited me quite well: Greenwell’s Glorys, simple Green Olives and Black Spiders. I tied them using a pair of surgical forceps (I still have them) that I pinched from my dad's toolbox for a tying vice, which in turn I clamped into his woodworking vice, and, using some cotton thread from mum's sewing box plus any bits of feather I could lay my hands on, I fashioned my flies as best I could. The Mouse trout, thankfully, were not terribly fussy creatures and readily ate them, despite my sloppy tying and make-do-and-mend materials.
Casting was tricky because of the trees all around, but the longest cast I had to make was no more than 15 feet or so. Presentation was everything though; plonk it down in a heap or let the stream drag the fly and you were lost. In order to hook the fish, I learned to feed the line back through my hands at the same pace as the current so that when a fish rose I could strike on a tight line. Some skills never leave you – I can do it yet.
Occasionally, the wee river would be in a coloured spate after heavy rain and then the technique was switched from the chalk stream/upstream dry-fly method to the upstream worm method; read in yet another fishing book. I would turn over boulders beside the stream until I found a worm, then, using a short length of nylon of about 2 foot connected to the end of my fly line and a small piece of lead shot pinched about 6 inches above a size 16 hook, I would make my way carefully upstream dropping the worm into the stream ahead of me. To help me see the takes, I tied a piece of bright red wool to the top of the leader. When it twitched, I set the hook. If it stopped in its bumpy passage, I set the hook. If I just got that certain feeling that something had changed, I set the hook. And every so often, the unmistakable pulse of life was there - but how I never took my eye out with all the missed takes (I wonder if that’s the origin of the word “mistake”) remains a mystery to me to this day. Kids have a karma all of their own.
Upstream worming produced the most memorable days trouting that I ever had. I arrived in the morning to a heavy spate and I almost went home, but since I had gone all that way, I tackled up anyway. That day I took trout after trout after trout to small worms until, by 2.00pm the water had dropped and a hatch of Olives came on. I switched to the dry fly and took even more trout in the cloudy water, which seemed to put them off not one bit.
My tally for the day was fifteen – a record I think that I have yet to beat, and I floated home on an air of triumph, only to have it dampened by my dad teasing me because I had released all of them and had nothing to show for my day. Back then, all of the “keepers” (fish above 8 inches – I still remember the small piece of string I carried marked in black at each inch and with a red mark at the 8 inch point) would generally be despatched and taken home as combined trophy and food. But after a while, I noticed that my parents and siblings didn’t always care to eat the fish too much and many were being wasted. So I stopped killing them, unless a neighbour asked for one. Fishing in those days was an additional food source to most of us in reality, and the high ideals of catch and release were a long way off. I just thought it stupid and pointless to kill something and watch it thrown in the bin, that was all. Still do, as a matter of fact.
But I think it was in these early trips that my now abiding attention to ritual in all matters fishing started. My “normal” day would start at the junction of the two rivers Mouse and Clyde, in a long deep slow pool that was virtually fishless, but was worth the odd cast. Then there was a couple of runs and splashy bits before I would get to the first proper fishy pool; a long glide that was a beautiful green colour from the reflection of the overhanging trees and high banks. The fish would lie along this far bank and if I was stealthy, I could sneak up behind them and flick a fly into the stream where they lay.
The next decent pool was my favourite. I called it the Blue Caravan pool, for the simple reason there was a blue caravan standing beside it; imagination usually loses out to pragmatism in my mind.
There was a big overhanging tree half way down the pool and underneath this, as you would expect, was where the big trout lay. A big trout on the Mouse was anything above 9 inches, which in fact was a respectable trout on most waters in those days. The trick in this pool was to cast the fly, usually a small Black Spider, so that it hit and bounced off the branches of the tree. A risky strategy when resources were limited with which to tie replacement flies, but a hugely successful one nonetheless. The fly would then drop onto the surface of the stream and, if I’d been careful and quiet in my approach and not spooked the fish, like as not the Black Spider would disappear in a perfect little dimple. With a quick strike, the fish would be on.
If I was lucky. Hooking small Brown trout on a dry fly is almost an art form in its own right and, thankfully, I gained sufficient artistry to winkle out many a brownie from this pool.
Past the tree overhanging the pool was a fast stream and in the slacker water to the side of this there was always a fish or two lying. This always puzzled me; first, it was only 4 or 5 inches deep and second, it was right beside a raw sewage outfall from the caravan park. I had always read that trout need pristine water to survive, but here was a small micro-environment that was very polluted, yet always held trout. Needless to say I never ate any of the fish that came from that particular stream; but the wisdom of age has indicated to me that there was nothing to stop fish lying there moving 4 yards across the stream to the lie under the tree, take a small fly dropping from a branch and so being caught and eaten by me. Don’t go there, please…
And that was it for the lower pools. From there, I would walk round the caravans and cross the road to what I called the Corner Pool. This was beside an old mill building which had a beautiful, but dangerously unsafe, old arch bridge over the river. I could sometimes take a trout out of the tail of the run as it swung on its right hand bend, and I distinctly remember that there was where most of the grayling I caught in the Mouse resided, but it was only a stop-off before the trek up to the main event - The Canyon.
The Canyon is a deep ravine that the river carves its way through. Initially, I had no idea how long The Canyon ran back in there for. To a young teenager, it was bona fide adventure territory.
The Canyon started with a rushing channel through some rocks. I never chanced going in there during a spate – it would have been far too dangerous. However, when the conditions were favourable, turning right and following the river course took you into a different world. It was always cool in there, the light was subdued and there was rarely any wind. The dippers sung more loudly than usual, partly to be heard above the rush of the water and partly as the result of the song bouncing and echoing off the sheer walls.
To fish The Canyon, you tied on a chunky Black Spider or a Coch-y-Bondhu and cast ahead of you into almost any riffles you fancied. Whatever fly it was, it had to be a bushy concoction as, due to the turbulence of the streams, it was hard to see it otherwise. There could be trout anywhere and they were invariably hungry and eager to come to the fly. Rises came thick and fast sometimes, and I was lucky if I hooked one in five, so adept at hitting the fly and spitting it out in a flash were these little trout.
Each week I would venture further and further in there, learning more and more about how to catch the trout as I went. Eventually, after many weeks of this exploration, I discovered a stunning little sunlit glade which my pragmatic, unimaginative teenage mind christened “The Glade”. For a number of weeks I would get as far as that point, but the last scrabble into The Glade itself involved getting over a fallen tree and climbing up a fairly steep and narrow run with tumbling water to my right and precious few hand and toe-holds. It wasn’t exactly the north face of Annapurnah, but it was difficult enough to keep me out of there for a few trips.
But, by taking down my rod and packing all away to free my hands, I finally made it over one time. It was worth all of the effort. The light was cool and green and the river was deep and slow alongside the sheer wall of The Canyon face, which dropped from the heights above into the dark depths of river’s left bank. There was an open space on the right bank where I could sit and enjoy a sandwich and listen to the swifts shrieking above me along the ridge.
What I remember most, though, was the smell of wild garlic or ramsons. This heady perfume hung in the still air of The Glade and stuck to my clothing so that I could smell it for hours later. I only have to close my eyes even yet and I can smell it. The ramsons grew there in profusion, but were most concentrated in the small patch of raised gravel under some hawthorn trees where I sat to have my lunch. A cheese sandwich, the great taste of Lilt and the smell of wild garlic with a Mars Bar dessert. Well, I was young and it was a long time ago…
But I never did catch a trout in that pool, despite the fact that it was stuffed with them. The trouble was that a number of them would lie just on the edge of the outflow - an impossible place to cast your fly and not have it drag wildly over their heads. Once spooked, they’d tear off into the body of the pool putting all the others down in their panic.
I discovered eventually that The Glade was about halfway up The Canyon and there was just as much water above it where I learned to winkle out the trout as there was below. Each visit saw me venturing further and further on past The Glade. The further away I got from the caravan park, the more spooked I could make myself; what if I fell and broke a leg? I never saw another soul in there for most of the time I went. What if I did meet someone and things got nasty? In the early seventies, industrial Scotland held a fair amount of unsavoury characters and it was easy to get smacked about simply for wearing the wrong colour of clothes. Some of those guys probably went fishing.
Fishing in The Canyon was one part adventure, one part fun and one part bravado.
Eventually, one day, I came to a new pool that had a pretty waterfall at the head of it and was shaped like a miniature Roman amphitheatre. It was still in The Canyon itself, but it was certainly blessed with much more sunlight and the temperature was therefore noticeably higher. After taking a couple of standard sized fish from below the fall, I climbed over the rocks and fallen trees at the head to find myself at the edge of a corn field. I had emerged from the other side of The Canyon. The mystery was over.
Although I went again a few more times, that was pretty much that for me. When I knew where it went and how it ended, the magic of the place was somehow diminished. I don’t know if that says anything in any way profound about me, but it was somehow enough. Besides, on a few of the later trips, I had started to meet the occasional other angler and, to cap it all, they were mostly fishing with floats and bait. The Canyon was no longer my sole, fly-only, province. Also, along about then, someone pointed me in the direction of a small loch with wild brownies in it where the fishing was free (unheard of) and since I’d never tried loch style fishing before I was compelled to go and…well, you know how it can be.
Four or five years ago, though, I went back.
The old ruined mill in Kirkfieldbank has been sold, refurbished and converted into a family home, complete with a gate and a PRIVATE sign so that you can no longer get access to The Canyon from that side. The river is now pretty badly polluted from the outflow of, of all things, a Rainbow trout farm further upstream.
There are still some Brown trout there, though, and I managed to take a few of them during an Olive hatch in the pool above The Canyon, which I reached by driving down a narrow road on the other side of the hill.
I could see The Canyon itself over the lip of the falls and past the fallen trees.
I had a look in there. It was just as dark and cool and mysterious as I remembered.
I didn’t go in.