In my previous post I, mostly, concentrated on salmon and sea trout fishing but in this one i thought it might be fun to talk about some trout fishing adventures.
Lewis has a lot of trout lochs, some people say 1200 or even 2000 which sounds excessive to me to be honest, and a lot of the joy of Lewis fishing is the "wild" aspect of a day out on the Lewis moor. I love nothing more than to spread the maps out at breakfast time and pick some remote trout loch as the target for the day. I usually try to pick a loch that will allow me to fish a few others on the walk out and back so sometimes I reach my target, and sometimes I get diverted by another loch that takes my fancy.
Lewis trout tend not to be huge and on the majority of lochs a 1lb fish is a decent fish, indeed on many lochs it might be normal to get 4 trout to the pound. However, these are real wild brown trout and it is a wonderful challenge to catch them no matter the size. It is possible to get big fish and there are lochs where big fish are often seen, especially on a calm evening, but the big fish are not at all easy to catch and if you want one then you will work for it.
As was the case with my previous report what I will do is post plenty of photos along with comments.
Walking back in after a day on the moor I captured this photo of the light on a Lewis loch. This loch and the others out the moor from it can produce decent fish in the 3/4 to 1.5lb range and I had about 10 fish for my day out with a few going into the bag for my dinner:
Walking the moor to the trout lochs can be rather rough going but the advantage of the Lewis fishing is that there are often only a few hundred yards between lochs so you rarely have to walk a long distance in one go plus there is almost always a view to keep you inspired and the various moorland plants and animals can also provide a lot of interest.
Eagles often join me on my moorland travels and the rapidly increasing numbers, in introductions, of sea eagles would appear to be having a significant impact on the behaviour, movements and range of the native golden eagle. Getting decent photos of eagles with a pocket point and shoot camera is far from easy so these are pretty poor but they show two pairs of eagles which joined me for a little while when out fishing this year. Usually it is more difficult to go out and not see an eagle than it is to actually spot one:
As well as walking to interesting places, and fishing interesting places, I also enjoy stopping and getting my stove going to make some tea. In the past the locals build little stone houses out on the moor called shielings and I would often use the remains of one of these as a good tea spot:
While there are lots of lochs, including some of the best, by the road sometimes there is nothing else for it but to get out and walk while enjoying the view:
Due to the very low water all throughout the summer months the salmon and sea trout fishing has been difficult in many areas but the trout fishing on Lewis did very well this year and I enjoyed my days out on the moor and was very successful. I don't kill many fish in a year and tend not to take photos of them but I did take this snap of some fish that I nipped out to get for lunch. These came in almost flat calm and pretty bright conditions over a period of about an hour - I used a small black wet fly fished on a fairly long leader to tempt them and was mostly casting to rising fish working along the edge of what little ripple there was on the surface. I've posted this one before but...
The Lewis fishing experience isn't for everyone and if you want to roll out of your car and hammer big fish that were released into a pond 10 minutes before you got there then it will not suit you. However if you want a real, wild, trout fishing experience chasing fish that were released into their remote lochs 10,000 years ago as the ice retreated my experience is that there is simply nowhere else to compare and it really should be on your "must do" list.
This is Loch nan Caorach which is where I got my SD username from. Caorach is the gaelic plural for sheep, so this is the loch of the sheep:
Finally my key tip for the Lewis angler - chill out and enjoy your fishing as you don't need to race anyone to the best spots and your problem will not be getting somewhere to fish but rather will be deciding where to fish next.
Lewis has a lot of trout lochs, some people say 1200 or even 2000 which sounds excessive to me to be honest, and a lot of the joy of Lewis fishing is the "wild" aspect of a day out on the Lewis moor. I love nothing more than to spread the maps out at breakfast time and pick some remote trout loch as the target for the day. I usually try to pick a loch that will allow me to fish a few others on the walk out and back so sometimes I reach my target, and sometimes I get diverted by another loch that takes my fancy.
Lewis trout tend not to be huge and on the majority of lochs a 1lb fish is a decent fish, indeed on many lochs it might be normal to get 4 trout to the pound. However, these are real wild brown trout and it is a wonderful challenge to catch them no matter the size. It is possible to get big fish and there are lochs where big fish are often seen, especially on a calm evening, but the big fish are not at all easy to catch and if you want one then you will work for it.
As was the case with my previous report what I will do is post plenty of photos along with comments.
Walking back in after a day on the moor I captured this photo of the light on a Lewis loch. This loch and the others out the moor from it can produce decent fish in the 3/4 to 1.5lb range and I had about 10 fish for my day out with a few going into the bag for my dinner:
Walking the moor to the trout lochs can be rather rough going but the advantage of the Lewis fishing is that there are often only a few hundred yards between lochs so you rarely have to walk a long distance in one go plus there is almost always a view to keep you inspired and the various moorland plants and animals can also provide a lot of interest.
Eagles often join me on my moorland travels and the rapidly increasing numbers, in introductions, of sea eagles would appear to be having a significant impact on the behaviour, movements and range of the native golden eagle. Getting decent photos of eagles with a pocket point and shoot camera is far from easy so these are pretty poor but they show two pairs of eagles which joined me for a little while when out fishing this year. Usually it is more difficult to go out and not see an eagle than it is to actually spot one:
As well as walking to interesting places, and fishing interesting places, I also enjoy stopping and getting my stove going to make some tea. In the past the locals build little stone houses out on the moor called shielings and I would often use the remains of one of these as a good tea spot:
While there are lots of lochs, including some of the best, by the road sometimes there is nothing else for it but to get out and walk while enjoying the view:
Due to the very low water all throughout the summer months the salmon and sea trout fishing has been difficult in many areas but the trout fishing on Lewis did very well this year and I enjoyed my days out on the moor and was very successful. I don't kill many fish in a year and tend not to take photos of them but I did take this snap of some fish that I nipped out to get for lunch. These came in almost flat calm and pretty bright conditions over a period of about an hour - I used a small black wet fly fished on a fairly long leader to tempt them and was mostly casting to rising fish working along the edge of what little ripple there was on the surface. I've posted this one before but...
The Lewis fishing experience isn't for everyone and if you want to roll out of your car and hammer big fish that were released into a pond 10 minutes before you got there then it will not suit you. However if you want a real, wild, trout fishing experience chasing fish that were released into their remote lochs 10,000 years ago as the ice retreated my experience is that there is simply nowhere else to compare and it really should be on your "must do" list.
This is Loch nan Caorach which is where I got my SD username from. Caorach is the gaelic plural for sheep, so this is the loch of the sheep:
Finally my key tip for the Lewis angler - chill out and enjoy your fishing as you don't need to race anyone to the best spots and your problem will not be getting somewhere to fish but rather will be deciding where to fish next.