Red Letter Monday

Last Monday’s fishing trip to one of my favourite saltwater venues turned out to be very much a short and sweet experience. Weather conditions and tides looked to be just about right with a mild south westerly breeze and the tide at about half ebb. There had been some quite heavy rain on Saturday night so there was a bit of colour to the water but hopefully not enough to make the fish run the stream at the head of the voe. Perhaps there might even be a few fresh grilse in to liven things up!

I had arranged to meet my friend Davy near the head of the voe as Covid-19 had put paid to sharing transport. Over the years I have known him he has taught me an incredible amount about catching large brown trout and fishing in saltwater for both salmon and sea trout. His enthusiasm and optimistic outlook has turned many an unsuccessful day into a day to remember.

Arriving at the voe at around 8:30am I only had a couple of hours before I had to be back home to look after our ageing golden labrador. “Plenty time to catch a few” Davy said. We made for a deeper area where fish sometimes hold up on a receding tide. My set up comprised a 9ft 6″ Greys 6 piece #7 Travel fly rod, a home made shooting head floater and a two fly cast with foam daddy on the tail and a size 8 golden Wickhams Fancy on the dropper. A salmon of around 5lbs jumped over Davy’s line but didn’t seem to be interested in his flies. I cast out into the deeper water where there was a splash at my tail fly. I lifted the rod and was into a beautiful silvery grilse which jumped and stripped off my fly line and a good length of backing too. After a while I got it back around my feet and it ran off again even further than the first run. It jumped again before it finally began to tire and I slipped the net under a lovely fresh run grilse of around 4lbs. “What a great way to start the day” Davy said.

Davy waded across the shallows to fish some hot spots on the east side of the voe. He had barely got 50 yards when I let out a shout that I was hooked up to another grilse. After a spirited fight where the fish ran me down to the backing twice, I was able to slip the net under another fresh run fish of around the 4lb mark.

With less than an hour to go before i was due home I covered a few more areas where I have hooked up before carefully fishing every area where the water was darker. After having a little nip at the flies I cast again and my rod arched over and I was into another strong fish. There was no feeling of head shaking associated with salmon and after a spirited fight I returned a lovely sea trout of well over 2lbs. What an amazing couple of hours fishing! Time to head off home before Davy kicked me out of the water!

Both salmon fell to my tan coloured Foam Daddy Longlegs and the sea trout to a size 8 Golden Wickham’s Fancy.

I fished at the same location twice since and blanked both times! It just goes to show that there is a strong element of good fortune involved when it comes to fishing. That’s what makes fishing so exciting. The unpredictability of it all!

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Saltwater Daddies

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  Foam Daddy

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  A well-used Foam Daddy

Foam Daddy longlegs Size 10

Trying to catch salmon and grilse in saltwater can be, at the best of times, extremely frustrating. Some anglers wouldn’t even consider having a go at them as the fish will either totally ignore the fly or to give half-hearted chase only to turn away at the last moment. There are however times when, for some unknown reason, an angler stands a fairly good chance of hooking a salmon in saltwater.

In my last blog I described a few occasions in July 2019 when I had caught some fresh-run grilse in saltwater. However the fish have since run up the burn and the few that have remained have become stale and extremely hard to tempt. Despite some periods of really heavy rain a few grilse have decided to remain behind and they rarely display their usual aerial acrobatics. Last Wednesday the rain during the night had been relentless. The head of the voe the next day was awash with peaty water an the burn a raging torrent. What could I use to tempt a few stale grilse? There was a strong south easterly wind blowing up the voe which would mean wading deep and fishing areas that were little more than waste to knee deep. The waves made me wonder if a Muddler would work so I tried a gold muddler and a Wickham’s Fancy on the tail with no response. Returning to my car I swapped my rod for my 9.5ft #4 Penn fly rod which I had been using for loch brown trout. I had a light cast (5lb breaking strain) with a size 10 daddy longlegs on the top dropper, a size 12 Wickham’s Fancy on the middle and a size 10 Blue Jay on the tail. Not the type of set-up for catching grilse but I thought I might get a sea trout . Fishing a few holding places for grilse on the way across resulted in nothing but as I approached the far side of the voe I saw a small sea trout jump and quickly covered it. It took the Blue Jay on the tail and after a spirited fight I returned it and carried on casting first in deeper water, then in mid depth and again in the shallows. Each cast I lifted the Daddy Longlegs up onto the wave and suddenly a decent fish head and tailed on the Daddy. I thought at first I had hooked a Sea Trout as it ran and jumped twice before making for a patch of seaweed near the edge. After another spirited run it began to tire and I was able to net it. “A grilse”! I couldn’t believe it! Only about 3lbs and beginning to colour but welcome catch nevertheless.

Buoyed up by my visit on Thursday I returned on Friday for an hour or so. I rearranged my cast putting a newly tied Daddy Longlegs on the top dropper, the successful size 10 Daddy (featured above) on the middle dropper and a size 10 Wickham’s Fancy on the tail. I was taking a risk using only 5lb breaking strain fluoro carbon when there were grilse around but something told me to fish light. I settled in to my favourite hot spot and after a dozen or so casts I saw a swirl at my middle dropper and I was connected to a strong fish that made off to the middle of the voe and jumped clear of the water. I immediately thought “grilse” but the strength of the fish quickly made me realise that this was a very good sea trout. It took a while to subdue and it brought the scales down to a shade over 3lbs. I did not have time to fish for very long as I had to drive into Lerwick for our weekly shopping. The fish had taken the same daddy that I had caught the grilse on the day before. Daddy Longlegs in the sea! I must continue with this madness in future. It works!

I managed to resist the temptation of fishing on Saturday and of course there is no fishing allowed on a Sunday in Scotland so it wasn’t until Monday that I returned to see if I could tempt another fish to the daddy longlegs. On Monday it was blowing a force 4 from the southeast. Ideal conditions for fishing in the sea I thought. The tide seemed much higher when I arrived but I had a feeling that there was a chance of another grilse in the hot spot where I had caught the sea trout the week before. I had been fishing for about ten minutes when a fish savagely took my flies and attempted to go for cover in the seaweed. Carefully I applied enough pressure to coax the fish out into open water and the fly line zipped past me with the reel singing. It was another grilse of around 3lbs and yes, you’ve guessed it, it took the same daddy longlegs! As you can see from the picture of the fly at the start of this blog, there is little left of the original six legs!

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  Grilse 3lbs

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  Sea Trout 3lbs

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  Grilse 3lbs

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  Grilse 4lbs June 2020

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  4lb Grilse from a Shetland Voe – Size 10 Daddy Longlegs July 2019

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  Grilse caught on a Daddy Longlegs August 2017

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  A 3lb grilse caught in salt water on a Wickhams Fancy

Sea Trout

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  One on a white sand eel

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  An angler tries for a fish at low tide

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  2lb and 1.5lb from a sea pool

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  A burnmouth location at low tide

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  A 3lb grilse caught in salt water on a Wickhams Fancy

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  A brace from a sea pool

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  Caught on a White Sand Eel April 2018

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  4 pounder caught in saltwater Isle of Skye August 2018

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  2.75lbs Isle of Skye August 2018

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  4lb Sea Trout caught on an ebbing tide

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  3lb Sea Trout Caught on a Wickhams Fancy

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  Double hook up

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Hunting for sea trout in salt water has long been a passion of mine and with this season fast approaching I have tied up some sea trout patterns which will hopefully catch a few in the bays and inlets around Shetland. There is a page on the Shetland Anglers Association website that will give you a few pointers as to where you can try at http://www.shetlandtrout.co.uk/sea-trout-fishing.html We are spoiled for choice up here as there are approximately 1,600 miles of coastline if you add on all the islands however it takes many years to find the real hot spots and I am still looking for them! Sea trout have a habit of disappearing as quickly as when they first came. The well-known locations will been well covered within the first few weeks of the season so the secret is to find somewhere that has been forgotten about over the years. The burn mouths tend to be the place to find the fish that have spawned and are eager to regain their condition so be gentle with these fish and exercise restraint to preserve the dwindling stocks of these beautiful fish. I catch and release around 95% these days and by doing so you not only help to preserve the stocks for the future, if you are a fish lover you will enjoy eating them all the more if you don’t have them too often.

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  Proppen (Barry Orde Clarke)

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  Blue and Silver

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  Cinnamon and Gold

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  Silver Cardinal

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  Blue Jay Matuka

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  Fluo Red Soldier Palmer

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  Davy’s Blue Jay

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  Wickham’s Fancy Sizes 8 to 10

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  Mike’s Eel

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  Coral Muddler

Sea trout can be fussy about what fly works best and it is often down to your own confidence in what fly will work best on a given day. My “go to” cast would almost always be a Wickham’s Fancy on a single dropper with my White Sand Eel on the tail. It is hard to say that a fly you have fashioned from a variety of materials is your own design but the White Sand Eel came to me more than 20 years ago when most of us were using traditional sea trout patterns. it is not unlike a Clouser Minnow which appeared around 2006, I designed this one to imitate the common sand eel which frequents the sandy bays and voes around Shetland around 2004. It lay in my box for years before I finally decided to try it out one day as a last resort when I failed to catch when it was obvious that sea trout were feeding in the area. There was no tentative half-hearted follow when I tried it out. All takes were positive and I ended up with 5 fish up to 2lbs before the shoal moved on.  Over the years I have tied up many variations of this pattern and all seem to work as well. The old fashioned epoxy resin and rotary driers have given way to fast setting UV resin and UV torches. My original version didn’t even have eyes and were very crude to say the least. The latest ones have realistic eyes and are tied in less than ten minutes. Last year I caught in excess of 200 sea trout on this pattern with 2 over 3lbs and many in the 2lb plus range. If you catch a sea trout in excess of 4lbs in Shetland you are doing extremely well!

In the summer months salmon and grilse can turn up in the voes and bays around Shetland. Sometimes their visits are fleeting as they make their way from the feeding grounds back to the rivers or streams of their birth. I have encountered shoals of large salmon as the tide advances on a Shetland voe. With fish leaping and nosing their way into the burn mouths to smell the fresh water they quickly disappear on the ebbing tide. In those situations you rarely get any interest from them as they are on the move the whole time. Their minds are focused on locating the streams and rivers of their birth. If you are fortunate enough to hook one of these fish they can empty your reel in a matter of seconds so be prepared by having plenty of backing. It is difficult to offer any advice about catching a salmon in salt water because the opportunities are few and far between. Those fish that I have hooked over the years have tended to be on smallish flies when I have been targeting sea trout. Of all the flies I have used in the sea it is perhaps the Wickham’s Fancy that I have been most successful with. Perhaps it is the shrimp-like appearance of the fly that triggers a response from the fish.

The start of the 2018 season unfortunately coincided with some very snowy weather throughout the United Kingdom. As I write this blog on 6th March there is still much snow around so any fishing will have to be curtailed until things warm up a bit.