Wilderness cottage's June 04 edition
of

Gordons, "tight lines" fishing news from Loch Ness, Scotland.

June a month of plenty and that includes rabbits and damage to my garden, but that is another story.

It seems that parts of Scotland have experienced a water shortage.  This seems worse in the Borders and Central belt, but on this occasion it appears we are blessed.  The rivers are in extremely good condition and salmon catches in general are showing dramatic improvements over last year.  The Ness system has been very good with the Morrison producing some extremely good fish early in the season, which is a tradition on this short controlled water.  The Spey is 50% up on this time last year with a large number of sea trout evident in all the regular pools.  Tickets are available at Mortimers, Grantown-on-Spey.  These fish, or should I say the better ones, are normally taken at night using traditional patterns.  I use the term traditional loosely and would suggest if you come from Devon, Cornwall, Wales, or any other notable sea trout area, please give your local patterns an airing.  You could get a surprise, sticking with the regular ones in your local area is a habit and not always a good one, so go on try some different patterns, it could be worth it.

The trout fishing can only be re-guarded as splendid right now. With an abundance of natural food available in the lochs, the fish are extremely active.  Latter parts of the day can be very exciting with fish lunging at the dry fly, but be very careful you do not get over indulged, the nights are a wee bit short and it is very easy to go fishing to the lochs one day and arrive home for breakfast the next, as at this time of the year darkness can possibly only be a couple of hours and these can soon pass you by.

If you wish to visit a small but productive salmon river just north of Inverness, then try the Alness.  Set in beautiful surrounding this river has always been good to me and I have had some memorable fishing on small sized yellow tosh, not big fish, just beautiful fishing, in an environment to match.  Tickets are available through Novar Estates, or contact me at Wilderness Cottages.

It leaves me with just one thing to do before going fishing, to attempt to resolve the first problem I mentioned, rabbits.  Yes, the countryside is changing, we now have a catch and release policy for fish, mole scarers and I am supposed to frighten the rabbits out of the garden, but that is wives for you!

I will be very happy to answer any fishing questions that you might have.

Tight lines and all the best,

Gordon.