A Day of Scottish Fishing with Surprising Kilt Comment

[Singlemalt]

I am sorry I have not been as active here of late however I did want to tell the Rabble about a quick trip to Scotland I just returned from. Last week I was attending meetings and working from my employers UK office which is in the far north east of England in Northumberland. Knowing how much I love fly fishing in general and salmon fishing in particular my British co-workers kindly set up a day of Salmon angling in Scotland for me.

First the fishing, through a few phone calls and connections with friends it was arranged I could spend a day on the Teviot which is a major tributary of the mighty Tweed. It was on the estate of the Lord Lothian. (I was tempted to knock on the door to say "hello cousin" as my mother was a Kerr). The surrounding county side is almost breathtakingly beautiful. Not wild in the untouched Canadian way. It is clear that the hand of man has been on this country for millenia. It is still rugged and weathered with lots of pockets of forest and habitat for abundant wildlife. Our Gillie (Guide) had two very active and merry little cocker spaniels who spent a very happy day while we were fishing. They were almost constantly putting up pheasants, rabbit and hare from the cover along the river and adjacent hedge rows. Mallards were flighting up and down the river all day. Amongst the many birds I saw an osprey fishing down stream of me, a beautiful bright blue little European Kingfisher and some sort of European version of the Dipper with a distinctive contrasting white breast patch.

The river was in good condition, it seemed to me water levels were about perfect for Salmon though a little stained from recent rain and a lot of autumn leaves flowing down which were a nuisance as your fly hooked them every other swing. No Salmon were caught on our beat (section of river) that day but I did see a reasonable number roll in the pools and a couple run up shallow riffles. It was certainly enough evidence of fish to keep me inspired to cast all day. I did catch two beautiful small brown trout, which I released. They were in lovely fall colours and very active but not much challenge for a 14' Spey (double handed) fly rod.

At lunch we retired to a small old stone cottage in the village, which used to be a schoolhouse. This was my opportunity to meet all the other rods (anglers) with whom I was sharing the beat. The were a delightful bunch of gentlemen all from fairly close by in Northern England or Southern Scotland. It is always easy to slip into comfortable conversation with those who share a passion for the field wherever they are from. During lunch one of the Scottish gentlemen comment that I had a very Scottish name. I told him that indeed I was from a Scottish-Canadian family who were very proud of their roots and kept many of the connections and traditions alive. When he asked me how, I gave the example of my eldest son Alistair's recent wedding. He wore his kilt and his younger brother Callum was best man and wore the same kilt I did at my marriage to their mother nearly 35 years ago.

The Scots gentleman asked me if mine was a "proper kilt"? I told him I felt it was, although it was hand-sewn in Canada, the material was woven by the largest mill in Scotland, in 16oz material, my family tartan and a full 8 yards. His reply; "That is not a proper kilt, my Scottish made kilt contains 22 yards of material." I just smiled and said; "I am really sorry that I did not have an opportunity to see it".

[kiltedtom]

I guess men are pretty much the same everywhere. Seems that they always want to do the game of "mine is bigger than yours." Some men just never learn that size is not everything.

Tom

[MacEanruig]

Good heavens, 22 yards of material? I suspect one would need a stout set of braces in order to wear such a kilt.

[Pleater]

It would weigh maybe 20lb - except of course he has a 22 ft kilt as he will probably have realised in one of those feelings of just dropped into a large bowl of warm pink jelly moments which Humans have from time to time, and it would weigh perhaps 3 to 4 lb

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Jock Scot]

Ah yes, the:-

" I never fail to catch /the biggest/ most/rarest/longest/only fish on the day, sort of fellow that always uses the longest/ shortest/latest/oldest/lightest/heavy-est/ most exclusive/most expensive fishing tackle in the universe" type fisher.

No doubt the equally universal tactic of smiling sweetly, and thinking "a+++****" worked perfectly.

I am delighted that you got to wet a line in Scotland.

[Taskr]

Och, you were lucky. We had to live in a 42yd kilt in the middle of the road, be up 5 hours before going to bed and have father ...

anyway, couldn't help channeling Monty Python on that one

I'm with Anne on this. 8yds, 22ft. Close enough.

[Liam]

It would weigh maybe 20lb - except of course he has a 22 ft kilt as he will probably have realised in one of those feelings of just dropped into a large bowl of warm pink jelly moments which Humans have from time to time, and it would weigh perhaps 3 to 4 lb

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

My thoughts, too, the gent confused ft, with yds.

[Tasty Rabbit]

22 yard kilt ? Was he Andre the Giant ?

[Calgacus]

I'm glad you had such an enjoyable day in the Borders. It's a part of the country which is rather overlooked by visitors and Scots alike.

You were fortunate to see an osprey, though they are actually more common than you might think. You were also fortunate to see a kingfisher, it's been a while since I've seen one myself. The dipper-type bird that you spotted was indeed surely a dipper. They always make me smile when I see them.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoveranden...name/d/dipper/

[Singlemalt]

I'm glad you had such an enjoyable day in the Borders. It's a part of the country which is rather overlooked by visitors and Scots alike.

You were fortunate to see an osprey, though they are actually more common than you might think. You were also fortunate to see a kingfisher, it's been a while since I've seen one myself. The dipper-type bird that you spotted was indeed surely a dipper. They always make me smile when I see them.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoveranden...name/d/dipper/

Thank you Calqacus, I am a bit of a closet bird watcher and enjoyed seeing British birds. The Osprey looked exactly like the ones which are quite common here. So did the dipper except for the white breast ours are just a plain drab grey but with the same bold attitude and pumping tail. The Kingfisher was quite different. Ours are big bold and loud and quite common. The British one was like a little gem, bright blue and was in and out of sight in a moment, though clearly recognizable as a Kingfisher by its profile and flight. I also was surprised to see Magpies which are common in western Canada but I have never seen one in Ontario.

A question for you about blackbirds. All day there were big flocks of birds which looked very much like crows to me but their calling was quite different. They were very very abundant, although I never saw one very close. Were these Rooks or European Crows?