The Hillend Veteran and I

 

 

Today I arranged a day off work and met up with Hillend veteran Davie Graham.

Davie is a Hillend angler of great repute and a very experienced fly fisher indeed.
Last year Davie and his boat partner won the annual Hillend boat angling competition so I was looking forward to sharing a boat today with him and looking to tap into his vast knowledge and experience of fly fishing at Hillend as well as his knowledge of highland lochs.
Davie suggested we head straight up to the west of the loch at the dam and make our first drift of the day from there.
Davie set up with floating line with a Kate muddler on the point a butcher on the middle and a soldier palmer on the bob, while I tried a sink tip line with a lure on the point and a Kate on the top dropper.
Very soon Davie was into a fish, a nice brown trout which was fooled by the Kate McLaren Muddler. I persevered for a while longer with my set up but eventually changed to my floating line with a wet daddy and a Kate which to be honest is a much more enjoyable way to fish. I felt that I now had a good chance with this more comfortable set up.
But alas still the fish wouldn’t come to my flies even after changing them from time to time.
We tried various drifts all over the loch. The wind certainly increased as the day went on which was a bit troublesome from time to time.
After a few hours we went back to where we made our first drift and low and behold Davie fooled, hooked and I netted another brown trout for him which was deceived by an F Fly.
We fished on for another couple of hours without any further fish and decided at about 5pm to call it a day and head back to the club house for a coffee and a bite to eat.
I had a very enjoyable day on the loch despite not fooling any trout and I’m sure Davie did too.