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Older and Wiser
Bruce Sandison looks reflects on triumph and failure. |
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 Chile is considered to be one of the world's most exotic and exclusive trout fishing locations. A country where outstanding sport is assured. A land where your wildest angling dreams can come true. A place where catching a double-figure fish is almost a certainty. Well, I have to tell you, 'it isn't necessarily so'. Like everywhere else, Chilean trout have their off days and it is just your bad luck if you happen to arrive when the fish have decided to be uncooperative.
I speak from personal experience having spent nearly a year of my life fishing in Chilean Patagonia, through two consecutive seasons, October until March, exploring the 10th Region which is relatively unknown to the general angling public; ice-blue rivers, lakes and small lagoons which are home to North American rainbow trout, brown trout of Scottish and German ancestry and Canadian brook trout, all of which were introduced in the later years of the 19th century.
There were wonderful days when trout rose constantly to surface insects, fish which averaged 3lb in weight with some up to and over 10lb. But there were times when, in spite of every effort, not a dimple disturbed the surface and you would swear that the place was fishless. I remember one such day, fishing with an American friend, Jimmy Molchun, on a small lagoon that I knew was packed with fish that invariably rose to even a less than expertly cast fly. After a couple of hours, when I was beginning to despair, Jimmy turned to me and said with a wry smile, "Hey, Bruce, are you the guy who called the witch-doctor a son-of-a-bitch?"
But no matter where you fish, be it in Chile, Alaska, Russia, New Zealand or you local water, wherever, the gods of angling hover constantly, dishing out a fish or two to him, nothing to another, perhaps a couple of heart-stopping rises to someone else, and, on special occasions, when you have been very, very, good, a basketful. I remember once spending a day on Loch Watten in Caithness with David Street, author of that marvellous book, 'Fishing in Wild Places'. Neither of us touched a trout, although I had fished the loch for twenty years and David was certainly no slouch when it came to the removal of trout from their natural habitat.
Two of our companions, new to the loch, fished Watten the following day, covering exactly the same drifts that David and I had so fruitlessly lashed and using the same patterns of artificial flies that we had used. They came home with a basket of 10 trout weighing 18lb. I wish that I could pretend that fishing conditions were better when they launched their assault than when we did, but that would less than the truth and it is a well-known and established fact that we anglers never tell a lie, well, not often.
 If anyone can explain this phenomenon to me, then I would be delighted to listen, but I honestly believe that fishing has more to do with 'unseen forces' that it has to do with skill, knowledge or experience. Being in the right place at the right time, it seems to me, is the only, all-important rule for angling success. If your name comes up, then you will catch fish regardless of what you chuck at them. If not, then you might just as well go fly a kite for all the fish you will catch.
Which I have, in fact, done, once, fly a kite that is, when lack of trout drove me to agree to extreme measures. The name of the pilot of the kite will remain secret as will the name of the loch where we used it. Yes, it was his idea, but I concurred and even laid out the line and managed the machine prior to take-off. We had attached a length of nylon to the tail, at end of which was a particularly large and inviting Loch Ordie. The rest, as they say, is history: a trout of 1lb 3oz unceremoniously hoisted aloft after dapping the fly across the surface for barely five minutes.
I honestly confess that we were more surprised than the unsuspecting fish and, shamefacedly, returned it to the loch to fight another day whilst hurriedly dismantling our devilish contraption before someone caught us in the act.
I am older now and, hopefully, wiser, but when first infected with the fever of angling I admit to at times resorting to less than normal tactics in the pursuit of trout; as when, many years ago, my wife, Ann, and I were fishing a hill loch in North Sutherland. Most of the waters we fished held excellent stocks of modestly-sized trout. However, a few contained specimen fish of prodigious size. One morning, we arrived at a lochan that was said to hold the largest trout in the area. He was infrequently seen, rarely hooked and allegedly lived below the branches of a ragged rowan that overhung the water, making it virtually impossible to get a fly to his lair.
To my everlasting regret, I resorted to devious means in order to have a chance at the fish. Whilst standing at the west end of the loch, I persuaded Ann, against her better judgement, to take the cast, and, as I paid out line for my reel, walk round the loch with it to the east end. Once she was in position, I called out "let go!" and she dropped the cast into the loch. Slowly, I wound the flies in, past the rowan where the trout lay. I was utterly convinced that the fish would take my fly, and utterly dejected when it didn't.
Today, I am far more sanguine about our gentle art. If I manage to catch a brace, that's fine, if not, then
there is always tomorrow. Just being there is sufficient unto itself and more than enough for me. Well, I would say that, wouldn't I, after all I am an angler!
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Profile
Bruce Sandison is a writer and journalist and author of nine books, including the definite anglers' guide, 'The Rivers and Lochs of Scotland' which is being revised and updated prior to republishing.
He contributed to 'Trout & Salmon' for 25 years and was angling correspondent for 'The Scotsman' for 20 years. Sandison writes for the magazine 'Fly Fishing and Fly Tying' and provides a weekly angling column in the 'Aberdeen Press & Journal'.
His work, on angling, Scottish history and environmental subjects, has appeared in most UK national papers, including 'The Sunday Times', 'The Telegraph', 'The Daily Mail', 'The Herald', 'Private Eye', 'The Field' and in a number of USA publications.
Sandison has worked extensively on BBC Radio. His series 'Tales of the Loch' ran for 5 years on Radio Scotland and was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and on BBC World Service. His series, 'The Sporting Gentleman's Gentleman' and his programme 'The River of a Thousand Tears', about Strathnaver, established his reputation as a broadcaster.
Sandison has had extensive coverage on television. He wrote and presented two series for the BBC TV Landward programme and has given a number of interviews over the years on factory-forestry, peat extraction, wild fish conservation and fish farming.
Sandison is founding chairman of 'The Salmon Farm Protest Group', an organisation that campaigns for the removal of fish farms from Scottish coastal and freshwater lochs where disease and pollution from these farms is driving wild salmonid populations to extinction.
Bruce Sandison won 'Feature Writer of the Year' in the Highlands and Islands Press Awards in 2000 and in 2002, and was highly commended in 2005. Bruce lives near Tongue in Sutherland with his wife Ann.
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