Isle of Skye

Well was up in the far reaches of scotland for a stag / walking weekend.

Set off on the Thursday, and after13 hours in the car, pitched the tent and collapsed.  Friday we spent on the Cullin Ridge....well part of it, however my knackered ankle and knee gave in, and my bottle on the more exposed sections went, so I came off the mountain early.

This meant that instead of walking on the saturday, I could pull out my sneakily packed fishing gear and go give it a swish on a nice mountain river.

We were staying at Sligachan


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And helpfully the hotel here does permits for the river, and there is the chance of salmon, sea trout and brown trout.  Never caught salmon or sea trout, and the likelyhood of them being there was beyond slim.  They had not seen rain in weeks, so the river was really really low.

So armed with permit (well it was imaginary as the hotel said the John Muir Trust had not sorted themselves out), and rod I plodded up the river.  Now I have never fished these types of river before, in fact the most northerly I had fished was Pennine Trout Fishery.  Nothing was rising so went with a small black wet.

First cast the fly did not sing and something came up and grabbed it, I missed it, but that was a good sign that dry's may work. So on went a small f-fly and the adventure began.  From that point onwards the first cast in a new pool or flow, produced a small splash at my fly.  And to be honest I missed most of the takes.  I could have caught 50, but ended the day with 4, nothing longer than 6 inches.  Still that was more fish than I have ever caught on dries, and I had only one wild brown to my name as well in the past, so all in all a very fun day in glorious sunshine, and tbh one of the easiest days fishing I have had.  Stockies at lechlade make you work way harder!