wow i caught one ... three actually

Have you ever fished for salmon from high above the pool and seen quite how many times your fly gets a look that at water level you would have no idea of? I was on the Coquet for a few days this August and was lucky enough to be allowed to fish a very special pool, one which holds fish in three or four lies and which you have to fish from behind an ancient wall high above the water. I was on holiday with the kids and so snuck out to fish for only an hour or so each day. And the first time I did I had no expectation at all of actually catching anything. The river was high and falling so I should have been more optimistic ... but come on, this was salmon I was after. I learnt to leave expectation at the door long ago. The cast was a tricky one. I was so high above the water that the fly jet-skated across the pool as the belly of the cast dropped to the surface. So to get a steady swing I had to throw lots of slack into the cast and point the rod downwards. A nice fish turned under my fly after only a few minutes. I would not have seen it if I hadn’t had an osprey’s view: it didn’t break or even disturb the surface. But I knew it was there now and I knew it was lively. I backed up one pace, and changed down to a really small silvery double. Two more casts and nothing. But the third I was sure would swing over the same spot. Up came the salmon. Rising like a trout intercepting a nymph it took the fly and dropped straight back down without turning. I counted to two and hooked it in the top of the jaw. Getting down the wall to water level was not easy. Nor was wrestling the salmon back upriver away from the fall at the pool’s tail.  Not perhaps the silverest of fish but, now that I think about it, my first ever English salmon. Thank you Coquet. For that and two more delivered just the same way a few days later: fish that gave themselves away but only took on the third or fourth change of fly. Fish that I’d never have seen from down on the river bank. If only we knew the rest of the time. If only ...

First published 7th September 2008