A Day of Scottish Fishing with Surprising Kilt Comment

[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?

[Jock Scot]

We have a saying, "if you see a flock of crows they will be rooks, if you see a single rook it will be a crow". They are all in the corvid family as are the magpie, jay, jackdaw and raven. The correct term for the crow is, carrion crow and they rarely move in groups. In the Highlands, I seem to recall seeing them in Ireland too, we have the hooded crow (no carrion crows), which is I suppose a carrion crow with large grey markings. We do not see magpies up here, but we have jays.

[cessna152towser]

I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to the Scottish Borders so much. I am blessed to live on the slopes of the Teviot valley, some two hundred feet above the river level.
Perhaps the gentleman confused yards and feet. 22 feet would be seven and one third yards.
22 yards would be too much material even for a Great Kilt.

[Jock Scot]

22 yards= 1 chain, in agricultural terms, a term that we still use.