During the late summer and early autumn I, as is my normal pattern, spent some time fishing on the Isle of Lewis in the wild west of the Outer Hebrides. When I return I often file a little fishing report and it is a little bit of a cheat as this year I did no stalking at all so there will be no stalking element to the report, if you want stalking you can look for the little report I filed this time last year 
Our brown trout closes on the 6th October and on the last day I would be out (actually the 5th) I took this photo of the rod once I'd snipped off the flies and called the trout done for the season:
There is always something a little sad about seeing the end of another season but it was great to be reflecting on a pretty good brown trout season. Early in the season the trout were thin and not in great condition so clearly the winter hit them pretty hard however once we got to the back end they were in fantastic condition:
In early September I had a visitor out for some real wild fishing. We walked many miles to two remote lochs. One of the lochs is something of a wildcard, mystery loch while the other produced big fish in the past but seems to be changing character from making an occasional 5lb fish to providing a good catch of 1/2lb to 1.5lb fish for the day. We had a fantastic day on the moor and caught wonderful fish from both of the lochs we visited plus enjoyed eating lunch and making tea by the bankside:
We weren't exactly keeping count but estimate that we had about 30 fish to about 1.5lb for the day plus both of us lost a big fish, in my case it was on my very first cast and I was still fiddling about sorting my line out when up came a big trout to my flies and, of course, although I connected with him I failed to hook him well and he soon went on his way.
On another day I was out with some visiting anglers at yet another remote moorland loch. The weather was quite remarkable with sun, heavy rain, and rainbows all at once and it really was a fantastic day to be on the moor. The loch is most interesting because it has a relatively shallow shelf, maybe 40 yards wide in places, which then falls away to a deep hole in the middle. Again we weren't counting but all had decent numbers of wonderful wild trout to about the 1.5lb mark and one of the visitors lost a much bigger fish that he had on for a little while.
Days like that on the moor for wild trout are, in my view, real classic game fishing at its best and I love to fish lochs that haven't seen an angler in many years. In the case of the loch in the photos above I fished it last year plus there was a local angler visited it on a quad bike last September and that anyone knows of that is the only time it has been fished in the last 3 years until we walked out in September this year.
As well as the lochs we have some really interesting rivers:
This year we had reasonable water for the later part of the season but we are lucky in having some tidal fishing where the sea trout and salmon wash in and out with the tides, especially the bigger tides. This makes for very interesting and exciting fishing but it also means that great care and a reasonable amount of common sense and local knowledge is required. This is all dry land for most of the year, but now and again it vanishes, this photo was taken over an hour after high tide as I couldn't access the area at all until then:
This year wasn't a classic year for sea trout, may people are putting the problems down to the salmon farms, but none the less I took a few visitors out for a cast for a sea trout and we all enjoyed good days out getting one chap his first sea trout. Some of the days presented us with less than ideal weather for actually catching something but even so it was nice to be up the river and the visitor loved driving for miles out a remote track across the moor and then walking for another few miles to find remote pools on the river:
As anyone who fishes with me soon discovers I spend a lot of time making tea or lunch and taking in the view as I'm very much of the opinion that fishing is not all about catching fish but about enjoying a day out. Sometimes I'm to be found making tea in old shielings (summer dwellings) on the moor and it is nice to sit by the ruined buildings and contemplate who might have been the last person to make tea there and what their lives were like:
As well as the brown trout and sea trout Lewis also has remarkable salmon fishing with a seemingly infinite range of fisheries to choose from. This year, as you may have seen reported in the press, we had some problems as the long dry spell held our salmon in the sea where they were attacked by sea lice from the salmon farm cages. As a result our salmon run wasn't what it should have been and, clearly, this is a matter of some concern for all anglers. I spent most of my time after the brown trout as they are what I enjoy most but I also managed to fit in a few days after salmon - visitors come from across the world for our salmon fishing so it is a shame to be standing in the middle of so many wonderful opportunities and to ignore them. I concocted a sort of plan to take some photos of me playing fish. This didn't work out at all well as it is a little difficult to mess about with the camera and also hold on to the salmon, even putting the camera into auto mode didn't much help:
Anyhow, it wasn't long until I gave up on that idea and restricted myself to simpler photo opportunities.
The salmon and sea trout season closes, for most fisheries, on the 15th October and on my last day of the season (a few days before the 15th) I like to visit two local rivers. One gets a good run of late sea trout, and historically also had a good run of late salmon and I believe it used to stay open until the end of November back in the 1800s. The other is a good salmon river, though the fish farm problem seems to have had an impact this year, and it can also get a little run of late fish though for the most part at this time of year you are fishing for grilse that ran back in July time. On a lovely autumn morning I headed up the sea trout river for a look:
It was a bit bright for fishing and so calm the midges were out. As it was I bumped into another angler I knew and we spent most of the morning drinking tea and chatting. The river was in great order but it is amazing to see how the moor was changing to its winter colours:
Neither of us spotted any sea trout, though being honest the chances were low in view of our mostly sitting about on the bank drinking tea, but we both figured we'd given it a good attempt and that it counted as a decent end to the season.
Towards lunchtime I moved to the second river of the day. This one is better known for its salmon rather than sea trout and it was running at a good height. At this point there was also a most remarkable change in the weather and it was as if night fell as thick cloud moved in and the light fell away to twilight levels.
I took myself up to a pool I like and started to make lunch, again this is a sort of tradition for the end of the season.
After that it was a matter of wandering up the river to see if there was anything about. I rarely go much above this point on the river, there is another few miles of good fishable water up above here before the first loch but I just like to stop here:
That was me done for another season. On the way up and formulated a theory on where the fish might be, as already mentioned the run was reduced by the sea lice from the farms killing many of our fish in the sea so it became a matter of finding a reduced number of fish rather than standing beside a river where the fish were splashing about everywhere as was normally the case. So as I wandered back down I carefully target a couple of likely spots and managed to pull a fish from one of them:
Once I released this one I snipped the flies off and called myself done as it is always nice to finish with a fish on the last cast.
Of course not all my time was spent at fishing and I have to chase sheep and look at moss and do all sorts of other stuff so with this in mind I will drop in a few more photos just for the sake of putting them in here:
Our brown trout closes on the 6th October and on the last day I would be out (actually the 5th) I took this photo of the rod once I'd snipped off the flies and called the trout done for the season:
There is always something a little sad about seeing the end of another season but it was great to be reflecting on a pretty good brown trout season. Early in the season the trout were thin and not in great condition so clearly the winter hit them pretty hard however once we got to the back end they were in fantastic condition:
In early September I had a visitor out for some real wild fishing. We walked many miles to two remote lochs. One of the lochs is something of a wildcard, mystery loch while the other produced big fish in the past but seems to be changing character from making an occasional 5lb fish to providing a good catch of 1/2lb to 1.5lb fish for the day. We had a fantastic day on the moor and caught wonderful fish from both of the lochs we visited plus enjoyed eating lunch and making tea by the bankside:
We weren't exactly keeping count but estimate that we had about 30 fish to about 1.5lb for the day plus both of us lost a big fish, in my case it was on my very first cast and I was still fiddling about sorting my line out when up came a big trout to my flies and, of course, although I connected with him I failed to hook him well and he soon went on his way.
On another day I was out with some visiting anglers at yet another remote moorland loch. The weather was quite remarkable with sun, heavy rain, and rainbows all at once and it really was a fantastic day to be on the moor. The loch is most interesting because it has a relatively shallow shelf, maybe 40 yards wide in places, which then falls away to a deep hole in the middle. Again we weren't counting but all had decent numbers of wonderful wild trout to about the 1.5lb mark and one of the visitors lost a much bigger fish that he had on for a little while.
Days like that on the moor for wild trout are, in my view, real classic game fishing at its best and I love to fish lochs that haven't seen an angler in many years. In the case of the loch in the photos above I fished it last year plus there was a local angler visited it on a quad bike last September and that anyone knows of that is the only time it has been fished in the last 3 years until we walked out in September this year.
As well as the lochs we have some really interesting rivers:
This year we had reasonable water for the later part of the season but we are lucky in having some tidal fishing where the sea trout and salmon wash in and out with the tides, especially the bigger tides. This makes for very interesting and exciting fishing but it also means that great care and a reasonable amount of common sense and local knowledge is required. This is all dry land for most of the year, but now and again it vanishes, this photo was taken over an hour after high tide as I couldn't access the area at all until then:
This year wasn't a classic year for sea trout, may people are putting the problems down to the salmon farms, but none the less I took a few visitors out for a cast for a sea trout and we all enjoyed good days out getting one chap his first sea trout. Some of the days presented us with less than ideal weather for actually catching something but even so it was nice to be up the river and the visitor loved driving for miles out a remote track across the moor and then walking for another few miles to find remote pools on the river:
As anyone who fishes with me soon discovers I spend a lot of time making tea or lunch and taking in the view as I'm very much of the opinion that fishing is not all about catching fish but about enjoying a day out. Sometimes I'm to be found making tea in old shielings (summer dwellings) on the moor and it is nice to sit by the ruined buildings and contemplate who might have been the last person to make tea there and what their lives were like:
As well as the brown trout and sea trout Lewis also has remarkable salmon fishing with a seemingly infinite range of fisheries to choose from. This year, as you may have seen reported in the press, we had some problems as the long dry spell held our salmon in the sea where they were attacked by sea lice from the salmon farm cages. As a result our salmon run wasn't what it should have been and, clearly, this is a matter of some concern for all anglers. I spent most of my time after the brown trout as they are what I enjoy most but I also managed to fit in a few days after salmon - visitors come from across the world for our salmon fishing so it is a shame to be standing in the middle of so many wonderful opportunities and to ignore them. I concocted a sort of plan to take some photos of me playing fish. This didn't work out at all well as it is a little difficult to mess about with the camera and also hold on to the salmon, even putting the camera into auto mode didn't much help:
Anyhow, it wasn't long until I gave up on that idea and restricted myself to simpler photo opportunities.
The salmon and sea trout season closes, for most fisheries, on the 15th October and on my last day of the season (a few days before the 15th) I like to visit two local rivers. One gets a good run of late sea trout, and historically also had a good run of late salmon and I believe it used to stay open until the end of November back in the 1800s. The other is a good salmon river, though the fish farm problem seems to have had an impact this year, and it can also get a little run of late fish though for the most part at this time of year you are fishing for grilse that ran back in July time. On a lovely autumn morning I headed up the sea trout river for a look:
It was a bit bright for fishing and so calm the midges were out. As it was I bumped into another angler I knew and we spent most of the morning drinking tea and chatting. The river was in great order but it is amazing to see how the moor was changing to its winter colours:
Neither of us spotted any sea trout, though being honest the chances were low in view of our mostly sitting about on the bank drinking tea, but we both figured we'd given it a good attempt and that it counted as a decent end to the season.
Towards lunchtime I moved to the second river of the day. This one is better known for its salmon rather than sea trout and it was running at a good height. At this point there was also a most remarkable change in the weather and it was as if night fell as thick cloud moved in and the light fell away to twilight levels.
I took myself up to a pool I like and started to make lunch, again this is a sort of tradition for the end of the season.
After that it was a matter of wandering up the river to see if there was anything about. I rarely go much above this point on the river, there is another few miles of good fishable water up above here before the first loch but I just like to stop here:
That was me done for another season. On the way up and formulated a theory on where the fish might be, as already mentioned the run was reduced by the sea lice from the farms killing many of our fish in the sea so it became a matter of finding a reduced number of fish rather than standing beside a river where the fish were splashing about everywhere as was normally the case. So as I wandered back down I carefully target a couple of likely spots and managed to pull a fish from one of them:
Once I released this one I snipped the flies off and called myself done as it is always nice to finish with a fish on the last cast.
Of course not all my time was spent at fishing and I have to chase sheep and look at moss and do all sorts of other stuff so with this in mind I will drop in a few more photos just for the sake of putting them in here:
