Saturday 16/08/14

Well, what can I say? I’d been waiting to go up into the hills with Jamie and Cameron for over a whole year only to see our hopes being blown away by a gale force westerly and sheets of rain. A quickly planned trip to a safety loch was agreed upon before battening down the hatches and accepting the dire weather that lay ahead of us. In all honesty we could have done better by staying in the pub and after three hours we all agreed that we were wasting our time. We set off towards the tents at the boathouse only to see George landing a fine brownie from the shore in front of where we were camping. We looked at each other and quickly said “aye” before grabbing the sea trout rods and getting stuck in. George knows the near bank like the back of his hand and soon had us into fish with a fine trout of about one and a quarter pounds to me, a two pound sea trout for George and a seriously big brownie chucked the fly on me! This was all happening in a force 4-5 wind! The fish were going absolutely mental! We chose to go back to the boathouse as George had organised a barbeque for us. Did I mention before what a wonderful guy he is? Burgers devoured and cans drained we set back out. Jamie, Cameron and myself all got stuck into the sea trout before George got a take to send shivers up your spine. We never saw what it was but by god, it was no tiddler! The near darkness just added more magic to the whole evening. The night went on back at the boathouse with a long overdue joke telling session accompanied by a few drams. I’ll never forget the duck and the breathalyser for as long as I live.

We were all soon into fish. Nothing big but on a day so miserable as this one, any fish was a bonus. As Jamie neared the end of a shoreline stretch there was an almighty eruption alongside his zulu muddler but alas, it was not to be! This had certainly not been a wee tiddler either! After a few more fish filled hours we trudged off back to the cars. It was really super to have had Jamie and Cameron back up for a fishing weekend. Together, as kids we had learned almost every aspect of trout fishing from catching tiddlers in tiny burns to taming their bigger brothers in the lochs and rivers of Ayrshire. If you have true fishing buddies then cherish them. It had been almost 17 years since we had all fished together but it seemed like nothing had changed. A true sign of friendship that will last a lifetime.