Fly Fly Islay April 2012 'Tranny fly fishing'

7 in the morning and a glass sea loch

A new way to fly fish, extra stealth....

Islay April 2012 Arrival of the guests
Throwing my gear in the van on a Friday night at 10.30 pm.. Fly tackle sea tackle, pike gear..the full lot..
The 30 min drive to meet Woody was time to think about the week ahead... It was time to make way for the magical trip over to Islay to guide a group of 8 to this magical Scottish Hebrides island...... Sweet
There is something about driving through the night, especially a long journey miles from the stresses of daily work back in stoke...
Driving past loch lomond in the pitch black always gives me the creeps.. This 27 miles loch is something else and one day I will fish it, as I gaze through the odd bit of street light throwing a orange glow in the deep black peaty water I look for likely pools to fish...it's that time of year and fishing has hold of my mind!!!
The ferry crossing at 7 went smooth with a glass surface sea...I got my head down for the 2 hr crossing, I was too fucked to see the amazing sights but was woken up by woody buzzing his head off...come on youth were nearly there!! It was a hour to go and was in a mess with lack of sleep but as soon as I saw the paps of Jura it gave m a lift of the week coming..
The lads joining us were due the next day, I  had not met any of them and woody had tipped me of  the bits he knew about them.. 'scoucers' he said.. Well I knew we would be in for a laugh but I started to put pad locks on everything !!
The house we were staying in was Skerrols House.. A anglers dream all perfectly set out for us.. A huge ripping fire place and a tying table overlooking the loch..winner
We got the house ready and unloaded the gear.
I found some knickers and a bra in my draw and only knew that this was my best catch of the week, it brought a new style to my fishing and i still have them on...... It was a choice of going to catch some zzzzzzzz or wet a line on the loch... We stood 100 m from the loch and saw a porpoise rise from a wee brownie...that was enough for us and we chucked our gear on and got on the boat..
The temp was 16 and there was fly life heaving off which I found odd for a wild loch.. Skerrols is surrounded by trees and this makes a huge difference to the hill lochs...more food on the surface is my style and I hoped of pure dry fishing..
I spotted a huge up winged fly and drifted the boat close to it to try and see what it was..i had no chance as a butter cup brown smashed it clean out the water...in my islay time i have neve seen a single olive on the water and this was quite exiting as I could see lots of them emerging off in the edges of the loch..towards the end of the week I managed to catch one by chasing it around Finlaggan Loch like a twat.. I recognised them as a Claret olive, three tails and a size 17..
Drifting over the loch we went single dry fly and it was nice to hook them smashing takes I have so missed..
Woody and myself got stuck into these fish and it felt so nice to be back, it always surprises me how hard these fish fight, a 2 lber would be just magic

notice the fly...LTD sedge



butter cup beauty that tail walked 3 times!!



Into my first brown 'on the dry'

30 hrs with no sleep and woody makes me row the boat upto the pier for the arriving guests (twat)

The next day I got invited out for the day with Islays top rod David Morris.. He is the modern Scottish wet fly man and from my previous meetings with him I noticed that he lives and breaths the fly just like myself..
The guests were not on the island yet so it was perfect to wet a line with this master of the wet..
Our styles of fishing are completely different, a Scottish wet style to my English dry fly river style..this would be interesting...
As normal I forgot my fly box and David gave me a few of his bibios which I greased up to fish the surface..
We were on the famous loch Gorm and hoped for some early season action
David fish a team of four wets, without naming them they were mostly of a snatcher style tyed by himself with extra fine detail which I admired.. I wanted to fish my ltd against his wets but I had no choice other than fish the dry bibio..
I started out taking two fish in the surface film, David was pulling wets to no avail and he did not hang around, he moved like the wind  casting left and right never standing still.. I stood and watched his style and before long he was into a fish... Another another another!! He was slating fish out at a unbelievable rate until it went quiet and this did not stop him.. He kept moving until he found another pod of trout..
I waded over to him and studied his methods like a hawk as i do with all top anglers..
We walked to a point next to a island with a wind behind us...claret Duns emerging off and duck fly were being blown across the into the shallow water, the trout were well keyed onto this and this was my chance to test the dry in a Engish dry style..
I showed David this and he looked at me like i was mad about to crouch down and drift my flys out... He walked straight through it and went into another run and started to take fish again pulling sets!!
I had a lesson from the wet master but it also taught me a lesson that over the week I could mix my style and his style to a effect of greater results... This payed me back nicely..
David took me back to the house and I thanked him for his kind offer and arriving back at scerrolds house all the new guests had just arrived..
We all shook hands as we introduced ourselves..
John lee one of the guests ran to get his telescope, he was a huge bird lover, not the same type as me!! He told me to look through his lens and I was gobsmacked to see the full beauty of a harrier over a mile away in full detail! This is something new to me and john taught me another way of bird watching of the following week that I can only describe as buzzing...
It was now 4.00 pm and we all sat in the living room giving the lads details of the coming week..the ripping fire had the lads tired after the long journey but  guest Tim asked me to take him out on the loch in the evening..
Later that evening we both sat on the boat and drifted in the witching hour taking fish to my ltd sedge, you could see from Tim's face he was loving it..he had seen nothing yet!!
Back at the house it was a Chinese and a few too many drams, good piss take out the scoucers and bed...

Wayne, Harrison, Glen, Fred, Pete, John, Woody...
Tim took the pic

A sweet first day
Nice one
Glen

PS Woody is taking bookings for our July and September Fly Fish Islay trips (May and June are now fully booked)...if you would like to join us on a trip, please email Woody (david@rarecask.com) for more info or contact us via our Fly Fish Islay page on Facebook....