Photo of a 4lb 5oz trout Caught in the Loch of Sandwick in Whalsay on the 8th September 2002.
Number 12 Royal Wulff Dry Fly by Robert Sandison
Carved and crafted to exacting proportions from a single block of wood by an extraordinary and gifted craftsman Alan Moncrief. Tumblin Shetland.
Number 12 Royal Wulff Dry Fly by Robert Sandison
Carved and crafted to exacting proportions from a single block of wood by an extraordinary and gifted craftsman Alan Moncrief. Tumblin Shetland.
DRY FLY FISHING
Robert Sandison from Whalsey has carved out his own ideas about fly fishing for brown trout in Shetland, not by following the fashion but by many years of close observation of the feeding behaviour of trout. A deep thinking and experimental angler Robert has also published a scientific paper on the genetics of wild shetland trout by analysing the stock of various hill lochs. Here he shares his thoughts about his favourite technique of dry fly fishing which is in part a conceptual framework built around adapting the size of the fly for the conditions of the day. Also included is Roberts observations of snail feeding trout which opens up another avenue of dry fly fishing to explore as well as inspiring tale of a possible Shetland record hooked and lost on one his dry fly patterns. See also Roberts observations and advice on tackling Caddis feeding brown trout in the trout food section of this site.
Robert begins with a timeless reminder about how to approach the loch .
‘Generally when fishing an undisturbed water in Shetland many of the wild brown trout can be found within easy casting distance from the bank. How often do we see an angler approach a loch and plunge straight in wading to the armpits and scaring every sensible trout within fifty yards. The angler will catch more fish if they approach the loch quietly and begin casting no more than a few feet from the bank slowly increasing the casting range.
The dry fly will lift fish in all conditions and although you will not hook them all at least you will have seen them which to me is an added bonus compared to fishing a sunk lure or similar. I have successfully lifted and hooked fish during torrential rain and including hail/snow storms which in the early part of the season can be the norm for Shetland angling conditions.
There are many flies that I could mention including some of my own wondrous large dry fly inventions that catch trout but may be an embarrassment in a beauty contest for the fly tying community, but one successful example would be my own furnace dry fly which I tie in all sizes.
The pattern consists of a furnace hackle (or several) palmered over various colours of tying thread but especially black and yellow. Many different thread colours have been fished and in Shetland lochs I have found that the colour yellow is very underrated and fishes well. Sometimes I stuff the hook with as much hackle as it can stand and gink it up to be almost unsinkable I have also cut the bottom of the hackles so the fly sits with the hook down. The sizes I work with the furnace range from 14 to 10.....To give you an idea of how simple the first furnace dry flies that i tied were....I used to tie them up at the side of the loch without a vice to suit the prevailing conditions at the time ... and they all took fish! Then it was a learning experience and a very enjoyable one.
Robert Sandison from Whalsey has carved out his own ideas about fly fishing for brown trout in Shetland, not by following the fashion but by many years of close observation of the feeding behaviour of trout. A deep thinking and experimental angler Robert has also published a scientific paper on the genetics of wild shetland trout by analysing the stock of various hill lochs. Here he shares his thoughts about his favourite technique of dry fly fishing which is in part a conceptual framework built around adapting the size of the fly for the conditions of the day. Also included is Roberts observations of snail feeding trout which opens up another avenue of dry fly fishing to explore as well as inspiring tale of a possible Shetland record hooked and lost on one his dry fly patterns. See also Roberts observations and advice on tackling Caddis feeding brown trout in the trout food section of this site.
Robert begins with a timeless reminder about how to approach the loch .
‘Generally when fishing an undisturbed water in Shetland many of the wild brown trout can be found within easy casting distance from the bank. How often do we see an angler approach a loch and plunge straight in wading to the armpits and scaring every sensible trout within fifty yards. The angler will catch more fish if they approach the loch quietly and begin casting no more than a few feet from the bank slowly increasing the casting range.
The dry fly will lift fish in all conditions and although you will not hook them all at least you will have seen them which to me is an added bonus compared to fishing a sunk lure or similar. I have successfully lifted and hooked fish during torrential rain and including hail/snow storms which in the early part of the season can be the norm for Shetland angling conditions.
There are many flies that I could mention including some of my own wondrous large dry fly inventions that catch trout but may be an embarrassment in a beauty contest for the fly tying community, but one successful example would be my own furnace dry fly which I tie in all sizes.
The pattern consists of a furnace hackle (or several) palmered over various colours of tying thread but especially black and yellow. Many different thread colours have been fished and in Shetland lochs I have found that the colour yellow is very underrated and fishes well. Sometimes I stuff the hook with as much hackle as it can stand and gink it up to be almost unsinkable I have also cut the bottom of the hackles so the fly sits with the hook down. The sizes I work with the furnace range from 14 to 10.....To give you an idea of how simple the first furnace dry flies that i tied were....I used to tie them up at the side of the loch without a vice to suit the prevailing conditions at the time ... and they all took fish! Then it was a learning experience and a very enjoyable one.
Furnace and yellow/Furnace and Black
hook size 14- 10 occasionally 8
Yellow or Black Thread body
Hackle- Furnace Cock
Vary the size and density of the dressing to suit the conditions. Trim off bottom of hackle if needed so the fly sits deeper in the film. There is an important lesson to learn here that could be applied to all fly patterns
Immerse the fly in silicone floatant at the tying desk to maximise floatability
hook size 14- 10 occasionally 8
Yellow or Black Thread body
Hackle- Furnace Cock
Vary the size and density of the dressing to suit the conditions. Trim off bottom of hackle if needed so the fly sits deeper in the film. There is an important lesson to learn here that could be applied to all fly patterns
Immerse the fly in silicone floatant at the tying desk to maximise floatability
When I get one just right for buoyancy then it means in certain conditions i can do a dry fly drift to quite an extreme range, I use floating backing to reach far out fish from the bank and have hooked a lot of fish a long range, when i started dry fly fishing I had to use binoculars to see the long range fly, but as I got more used to it i found that my eyes adjusted and could pick out the fly on the surface with little effort...also if the fly is right for the conditions then on the retrieve it will sink subsurface and we have the best of two methods with one fly...but conditions determine the fly to use for buoyancy. One way to cope with fishing at extreme range is to use a marker fly.
MARKER FLY
Sometimes on windy days I tie on a high floating large black antron marker fly on the point with one or two smaller dry flies above and watch the marker fly. These large marker flies do not win any prizes in a beauty contest but sometimes when they blow downwind they can be as deadly as the petite flies above. The fish can go mental leaping over the top and trying to eat the fly on the way back down, usually they miss the fly and sometimes by quite a large margin. There is nothing the angler can do in that situation as the fish will hook themselves on occasion on the way back down from high above the surface, a spectacular sight especially if it’s a large fish.
The black marker fly varies in the body colour, my most success has been with red or claret, bibio or yellow. The black antron is tied into the top of the fly the full length something like a hedgehog fly and quite bushy to make it float high and thus be visible to the angler at a distance. I have tied this fly on a size 8 longshank in the past to make a very large bushy fly, but found that I could not hook the fish so well with the larger hook.. ..although it could certainly lift some good fish!
MARKER FLY
Sometimes on windy days I tie on a high floating large black antron marker fly on the point with one or two smaller dry flies above and watch the marker fly. These large marker flies do not win any prizes in a beauty contest but sometimes when they blow downwind they can be as deadly as the petite flies above. The fish can go mental leaping over the top and trying to eat the fly on the way back down, usually they miss the fly and sometimes by quite a large margin. There is nothing the angler can do in that situation as the fish will hook themselves on occasion on the way back down from high above the surface, a spectacular sight especially if it’s a large fish.
The black marker fly varies in the body colour, my most success has been with red or claret, bibio or yellow. The black antron is tied into the top of the fly the full length something like a hedgehog fly and quite bushy to make it float high and thus be visible to the angler at a distance. I have tied this fly on a size 8 longshank in the past to make a very large bushy fly, but found that I could not hook the fish so well with the larger hook.. ..although it could certainly lift some good fish!
Snail Dry Fly
Another interesting dry fly tactic is fishing the little known snail dry fly.
Some anglers have a mistaken belief that trout full of snails are always bottom feeders. As can be seen from the picture a false assumption. Freshwater snails will migrate through a loch by capturing air in their shells and drifting on the wind, the dry fly snail is an interesting angling tactic and I have taken surface fish on my own snail imitations dressed with cork similar in colour to the snail and to help float the fly.
Freshwater snail photographed on Bu-Water, Whalsay. Feeding on surface algae with the open mouth clearly visible and being held by surface tension.
Another interesting dry fly tactic is fishing the little known snail dry fly.
Some anglers have a mistaken belief that trout full of snails are always bottom feeders. As can be seen from the picture a false assumption. Freshwater snails will migrate through a loch by capturing air in their shells and drifting on the wind, the dry fly snail is an interesting angling tactic and I have taken surface fish on my own snail imitations dressed with cork similar in colour to the snail and to help float the fly.
Freshwater snail photographed on Bu-Water, Whalsay. Feeding on surface algae with the open mouth clearly visible and being held by surface tension.
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
There are many anglers who have tales of the one that got away when fishing Shetland lochs and there are stories of fish remains being found on the shores of some lochs that point to huge fish in their waters. Here is my tale.
Nothing in the angling world excites me more than fishing a dry fly for the first time on a remote hill loch on Shetland (there are plenty still left for me to visit) with no knowledge of whether it holds any trout or not. The day in question was 13th August 1996 (it just had to be the 13th) and involved three of us doing a bit of hiking and exploring a few new to us hill lochs. The weather conditions at the time were light variable wind with broken cloud and sunshine. We had all caught a few smallish wild brownies in a few of the lochs when one of my friends accompanied me to the shore of yet another hitherto unfished water. None of us had any idea if it supported a population of trout or not, nonetheless I cast a dry fly out into the relatively calm water and watched a few minutes and waited, there was at the time no disturbance or fish activity to be seen on the water and the whole loch looked a bit dour and dead. Erroneous advice often quoted in angling circles is that the angler must see rising fish when fishing a dry fly. This false information is absolute rubbish and I know from years of experience of fishing a dry fly that sometimes the prevailing conditions seen on the loch on that day are often the best conditions with the fish often just waiting for some wind blown insect to hit the surface. My friend had gone further along the bank to fish wet fly on a sink tip so as not to disturb my floating line static dry fly efforts. My tranquil surroundings were suddenly shattered by the loudest take on a dry fly that I have ever heard and can only be described as like a gunshot close to the ear. Smack the fish was on having sucked down my self tied Furnace and Yellow No 14 dry fly the fight was on and the reel screamed in agony as the monster ran into the backing. Zing went the reel screaming on melt down and when almost all the backing was gone the fish turned and came back towards me. Frantically I took in line to keep tension, the wild fish did three more powerful runs into the backing and then stopped at length and went deep down into the loch. At all times my rod was bent completely double there was absolutely no give and I may as well have been fishing with a rigid broom handle as the rod could not work the fish (this was a ten foot powerful rod), the strain and dead weight on the rod never once relented. Deep down in the loch the fish began the monster head shake trying to dislodge the hook and the sensation went through the bent double rod and through my very boots an incredible experience. After some time I began to gain a bit more line and managed to get the fish closer to the bank but at no time did I get its head up, the first that we saw of the fish was an enormous tail breaking the surface slowly flapping with the head still boring down. I estimated the tail across to be similar or larger than the brim of the cap I was wearing at the time. My friend was standing by in stunned silence as I edged the fish closer to the bank then at the last moment the monster rolled over in slow motion to reveal a huge deep belly and the small number 14 dry fly pulled free, the monster head shake had done the trick and loosened the fly. We never did see the head end of the fish and the last sight of the monster was the enormous tail slowly flapping and disappearing into the depths.
Have fished the same loch on numerous occasions since that eventful day and having caught wild brown trout over 4lbs from its waters these fish can only be described as babies in comparison to the one that got away. The loch is self sustaining and holds all sizes of wild brown trout with good feeding including three spinned stickleback and an abundance of zooplankton. Have also observed upwinged olive hatching along with plenty of the trout favourite caddis. One visit a few years ago was during what’s often described in nature literature as the ‘marriage flight of ants’ and the only resident Shetland ant ‘Myrmica ruginodes’ was on the wing. The flight of ants occurs when all the nests in an area erupt at the same time and the adult ants begin their mating performance and having mated the males die and the females lose their wings and go off to propagate a new colony of their own. Now with this particular ant bonanza taking place and while targeting rising fish close to the bank with my ant imitation I again witnessed out in the loch an enormous fish feeding on the surface and gulping down the wind blown ants. On that day I managed to hook two fish both over three pounds, but again these were small in comparison to the monster gulper, but at least I had seen yet again one of the lochs secretive monsters. There is little doubt that this loch has been fished by a few hill walking anglers at various times of year to no avail and often when I have fished here one would swear blind that there was no fish in its waters. Dour for this loch is the understatement and that is perhaps what saves it from getting hammered by some of the hill walking fishing community. Had my first visit been a complete dour one it’s unlikely that I would have put in the same amount of effort to hike and fish its waters, but knowledge and experience along with patience is a great thing and often having spent a few hours not having seen a fish the loch will suddenly become active. This happens with hill lochs on a regular basis and is mainly due to the complex ecology of the loch including insect behaviour (such as caddis emerging) or stages in their life cycle and trout feeding patterns there are no two lochs exactly alike.
Someone fishing here in the future will like me on that eventful day ten years ago possibly get the shock of their lives and hook into one of the monsters. If a little luck is on their side and they manage to land the fish I have no doubt it would certainly be into double figures and consequently the Shetland record for a wild brown trout fly caught fish. What better way to end my story than to say well I have at least seen them. As I remarked to my friend after the monster escaped it would have been so nice if it could have shouted back to us and told us its weight, unfortunately it didn’t give me a choice but for that information I would have gladly agreed to let it go and live out its life in peace where it belongs.
I have both caught and lost some good wild fish in the past but none can ever compare to the powerful head shaking monster who completely doubled and almost broke my ten foot rod. Did it break my heart? No I can truthfully say after that fight it deserved its freedom, but what it did do was to fortify and to hone my appreciation of Shetland’s remote hill lochs and the wonder that is nature.
Grant me again the quite summer nights close by that water and give me the fortitude to appreciate nature and its surroundings in the twilight hours at its most glorious. That solitary place among the heather hills where in darkness by the water the soul can be replenished and can retreat from the human form. That special place where nothing can be heard but the quite hush of an insect on the wing and the movement of the big trout as they slowly sip the nectar of life. Robert Sandison Whalsey