But still, more often than not, I’ll go out - and this night will probably be no exception.

I’ll go because there is nothing quite like night fishing and if you want to catch a sea trout, accepted wisdom dictates that you have to go at night. And I'll go because tonight could just be that special sea trout night that we all need to experience once in a while to remind us why we do it at all.

On a special night, and I have to confess there have only been one or two, it will be calm with a light cloud cover. The air will be mild, but a chill will be settling down steadily over the water. There will be the raucous screaming of black headed gulls in the gloaming light, taking a last feed on the caddis hatch. If my timing is just right, there will be a black blizzard of small sedges, the grannoms, drifting steadily upstream. Always upstream, for reasons that puzzle until you realise that Mother Nature’s hand is never random. If they laid their eggs in the exact same place where they themselves hatched, the eggs would naturally drift downstream in the current. As the eons pass, the insects would eventually move further and further downstream until they laid eggs that would wash out to sea and end their time permanently on this planet. So they hatch and they fly upstream before laying their eggs. Simple. Perfection even.

On a perfect night, I’ll step into the river on the right bank below the Bridge Pool and up in the streamy water before Upper and Lower Tulchan. I’ll still be a bit unsteady on my feet from the wine, but nothing dangerous, and I’ll be singing to myself, the volume will depend on the quantity of wine consumed. The song itself is immaterial; it’s the ritual that counts.

I will be 100% certain that a standard two-pound Spey sea trout will be lying in that pocket water that I can just reach with a double-haul cast. The fly will be a size 10 Executioner, tied and donated by Alf Gaskell, and I’ll be using my 5 weight, 10ft Sage fly rod; a rod that is springy enough to handle leaping sea trout without pulling the hook. I’ve been told that split-cane is even better, but I’ve yet to try it for myself.

Out will go the line with a song behind it. This little pocket water is always productive, and even the odd salmon comes out of it - a real thrill on my light outfit. But tonight it will be a sea trout, of that I’m sure.

There will be a solid bang! and then the little Abel reel that I fish with will sing louder than me as the hooked sea trout tears off, jumping and cartwheeling as it goes. I’ll play it to my feet, slide my hand down the leader to the hook and, with a quick flick, release it while it’s still in the water to scoot off back to its lair.

I might have another cast or two here, but with the light going and the bats whirring overhead, I will move down to the next pool - a long, even-flowing glide that is a little piece of heaven on earth. A woodcock will be circling overhead, squeaking its call, in a roading flight like a large ethereal moth.

I will start at the head of the pool and cast across at a sharp angle, always remembering that I once took a 10lb salmon from here on this very rod on a size 12 Grouse and Claret fly. There will be no salmon tonight though; tonight the sea trout will be on.

I'll hear the plops and splashes of the rising fish, even though the light is now so low that I'll see very little. I’ll be casting out of habit now; I know this pool well so I'll have no problems with this and long ago I learned to fish with a single fly only at night to maximise fishing time and minimise tangle time. I’ll wade stealthily down the shallow gravel bar in the pool, casting squarely across the current and retrieving line in a figure of eight pattern as I go.

Bang! A miss. It’ll come again and with another bang I’ll miss it again. I’ll wade on, casting silently - my singing will have stopped along with the light.

Bang! and he’ll be on, tearing away downstream with the scream of the reel cutting the silence of the night. Another school fish of two pounds or thereabouts, eventually brought to hand and released.

A couple of steps and I'll be directly across from the Tulchan burn mouth in Lower Tulchan, where the big fish hang in the meeting of the two currents. A couple of casts later and bang! right where he is supposed to be. This time he will be heavier and mean business right from the start. All of the fly line and twenty or more yards of backing will disappear into the blackness to the little Abel’s shrieking protests. I’ll bring him back to me and off he will surge again. Twice more this will happen before I’ll slide him up the grass to look at a stunning five pound bar of silver.

Back to the river he'll go and I’ll step back in whence I came.

I’ll fish down to the tail of the pool. This is where I take most of the salmon when fishing for sea trout in this pool, just at the drop off into the deep water past the bushes on my side before Lower Tulchan slides into Dunbar. Not tonight, however. Just at the very last cast, bang! and another fish will be on. It will tear off like the others, but I’ll be the master of it and get it ashore more quickly than before.

I’ll keep this one, because they’re so good to eat and, well, because it just feels right.

The Riocha buzz will be gone by now and, tired from a days salmon fishing and half a nights sea trout fishing, I’ll call it quits. I’ve been promising myself to stay later and to fish with a sinking line and a big fly - the way everyone tells me to catch the really big sea trout - but somehow, like always, I know that enough is enough for now.

Although I’ll know that this has been a uniquely special night, I'll tell myself that there will always be tomorrow night and I’ll walk back to the cottage to write up my diary in the now cool kitchen, and maybe have a nightcap before bed.

But I'll wake up wishing I'd stayed out.

Sea Trout - Part 2

I know a pool.

This pool is on a beat that I can't tell you the name of and it's on a river that if I mentioned its name you would be able to put two and two together and so discover the beat. I'm not being selfish, well not overly so, but I told the owner I would not write about it and I am a man of my word. I can say that it is not on the Spey and I only say that because I have written so much about the Spey and Tulchan that I wouldn't like you to think that is the only place I fish.

This pool starts in a fast rush, flows under some trees on its left bank and then slows into a long, lazy bend before connecting with a deep canal-like section for about a mile. The sea-trout lie up all day in the canal bit under the trees that overhang the banks. They sulk in the shade and think salty, cool thoughts through the early summer heat. By midnight they start to move up into the faster stream. They cruise up and down, changing positions, frustrated by the delay, itching to move on but unsure whether to leave the safety of the deeps in the thin, warm water of summer.

By about 12.30am it is time to start.

The streamy bit itself hasn't produced anything for me yet but I am told it is very good. I use it to get my casting sorted and my night vision settled. By then you see the last of the gloaming light has gone from the sky and all the colour has been squeezed from the foliage and banks: everything is in monochrome, forged in a gray-bronze light. This, I am convinced, is what switches the sea trout on. I'll probably be using a small squirrel, blue and silver on a single hook with a flying treble for security. I will be using this because I have found that wee doubles seem to lever themselves out of sea trout's mouths with all the jumping that they do yet single hooks hold strong. It's only what I have found, it's not necessarily fact.

By the time I have reached the slacker water I will have heard at least one crash as a silver torpedo gains air-time for a second or two before slapping back into the water. The natives are getting restless. It is likely that the air will be cooler than the water, meaning that when I put my hand into the water it's like putting it into warm tea, and this isn't normally great news for sea trout fishing but here it never seems to matter.

I know that I'll definitely get a take and when it comes, it's as gentle as a minnow. Just a stop on the line and a little pressure, that's it. Not the big Bang! I have been used to. I tighten up firm, not really a strike in the accepted sense, and then...mayhem. The fish jumps, turns and runs for the deep. My wee Abel reel is howling and the 10ft 5 weight Sage is bucking and folding. Slackness. He's running back at me. I reel frantically as the Abel is a small arbor, non multiplier and so doesn't pick up line too quickly. It's gone slack, it's too slack...and then...whoosh...he's off back to the deep again tearing line as he goes. Jump. Run. Jump. Run. I turn him again and he's right in front of me now, jumping like crazy. How did that happen! I thought he was still way down there! He'll surely come off this time! But I eventually see the flash of white flank in the gloom and I slide him up onto a sandy patch, risking my torch for the first time.

What a fish. 4lb if he's an ounce. The single hook slides out easily, the flying treble hadn't even taken hold, and he slips off into the black.

Yes.

I know a pool.