Fishing a Highland Stream 1960 (A Love Affair with a River)

by John Ingles Hall ISBN 0-670-81473-3 and

A Highland Stream 2021 (A Love Affair Continued)

by Terence Clifford- Amos ISBN 978-1-907110-94-8

For those of you who love fishing the Scottish lochs, streams and rivers these two books, 60 years apart, are a must for your collection.  Both books refer to the River Truim, which is a tributary of the Spey and is situated on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park and is approximately 15 miles long.  11miles of it was fully explored and charted by John Hall over a seven-year period (OS Maps 42 and 35).

For those who drive up the M6 and M74 to Scotland, then up the A9, the Truim lies on your left-hand side by Dalwhinnie; easily recognized by the tall towers of Grants whisky distillers.  If you are as old as me, in the early years you drove up the A9, which was much nearer to the river.  The river can now only be fished by the local people.

Both these books tell a fabulous story of the era around the stream and the people living there.  So as not to spoil it, I will leave you with the introduction to the first book.

“There are places which it is possible to love as deeply as if they were people. Fishing a Highland Stream by John Ingles Hall is an account of one man’s love for a small river, the Truim, as in the Central Scottish Highlands, its countryside and inhabitants. Feeling and sincerity make it a minor classic, not only about trout fishing but about nature, portraying both the lure of the art of fly fishing and the fascination of the ancient ice-eroded mountains of the Cairngorms.

I came upon the book by chance sometime after I had fallen in love with the Truim myself and experienced the lonely magic of its route.  In those days in a glen where only the grazing roe deer and the shrill oystercatchers watch your passing.

Before long, I began to take it with me in my fishing bag, wrapped in a plastic cover, partly to gather points and perceptions from the authors methods, but also to see the river with his eyes as well as my own.  With him I came to look for the identical, unchanging, permanent duty owl on guard at the mouth of the Truim, this stretch above the Laggan Bridge where the water glitter and shade-dappled and the bend near the electricity pylons, which is fished to the sound of music as the wind plays upon this great harp we have stretched across the moor.

It remains a place of remembered hidden corners to which my wife and I try and make an annual pilgrimage on our way to rivers farther north.  Once a year, too, I re-read the book, not only for the Truim itself, and the Dalwhinnie country, but for John Ingles Hall feelings and superbly expressed regard for it.  It is good to think that this new edition will bring pleasure like my own to many other people, not only fishers, but to all those who love this life and landscape of places set apart.

Sir Geoffrey Cox 1987”

Andrew Ayres

Cheltenham Fly Dressers, Grayling Society, Worcester Fly Dressers, Ludlow Fly dressers and FDG member.

Beneath the Black Water by Jon Berry

ISBN 978 0 7524 5837 3

For those of us who love fishing the Scottish Highland Lochs - trampling across the wild unforgiving moors with only a compass to guide us, looking for that hidden Loch, maybe never been fished before and just waiting for us - this is a great story, so not to spoil it I will read you the introduction only.

“When I was very young and on holiday in Scotland, my cousin told me about giant trout that lived in small numbers at the bottom of the deepest lochs.

They were called Salmo Ferox, and they were rumoured to be uncatchable.

In his twenties, wholly by accidentally, Jon Berry caught one. This led to an obsession that would cost him every pound he had to his name, a few thousand he did not have and his home.

It would take him to Scotland, Cumbria the wildest parts of Ireland in the company of a disparate band of fanatics - alcoholics, mountain men, scientists, tree-planting eco-warriors and one genuine soothsayer. Not all of them survived”.

This is not just a story of a fish, albeit a cannibalistic giant trout of the glacial lochs, it is a tale of compulsion and escape, and the author’s rediscovery of a landscape and a clan, and willing descent into madness.

It’s a wonderful read.

Andrew Ayres

CFD, WFD and Grayling Society member.

Book Review

The Guild is to run flytying courses starting in January 2021/22 (see the Programme page on this website).   If you are a beginner or need to brush up your techniques, there are lots of books out there which will help, but do have a look at this one (available from Gloucester Library if you can’t find it elsewhere):

Fly Tying for Beginners by Peter Gathercole

ISBN 1-84513-118-5 published 2005 by Aurum Press Ltd

It comes in a small spring-bound book approx. 6” x 8” and has sections on tools & materials and a large section on Core Techniques such as spinning deer hair, dubbing, parachute hackles, etc, then clear descriptions of how to tie 50 top flies including nymphs, wet and dry flies, streamers and hairwings, clearly illustrated with excellent photographs.   There is also a Fly Directory showing all the 50 flies so you can spot which one you’d like to tie at a glance.

Have a go!