Between working and living overseas it has been way too long since I headed up to my favourite corner of the Scottish mainland, Durness. So when my son Steven announced last week that he fancied a weekend on the limestone lochs I jumped at the chance to join him.
We left at an ungodly hour on Friday morning and arrived just before mid day. We went to speak to Martin about the lochs and to catch up but he was not at home so we decided to head to the camp site and pitch our tents prior to heading off to the first loch. Well suffice to say between Covid and the upsurge in the North coast 500 brigade we saw our first ever gridlock jam in Durness. In all my years I have never seen such traffic up there and the amount of campervans blocking the road was unreal. After a swift three point turn we just went to one of the lochs instead.
We headed out in float tubes and fished all the usual spots on this loch that have produced in the past. By the time Martin called and let us know that we could camp on a piece of his land away from the madding crowd we had one trout between us at around 1 1/2 pounds but at least the blank was off.
We then headed over to Martins land which just happens to be on the banks of our favourite loch to set up our tents and settle in for the evening. Unusually for Durness there was not a breath of wind when we shut down on Friday night.
When we got up on Saturday still no wind but we could hardly even see the loch.
Anyway a couple of hours later and the mist lifted and we were not expecting much on this loch which can be dour at the best of times so in brilliant sunshine and flat calm it was decided to fish from the bank and cast as far as possible with a cammo intermediate and a size 8 shuggie (this goes against all of my usual tiny nymphs and dries that I usually use)
Well obviously lure bashing does work (
) as you will see below.
W ended up in an hours fishing with five trout, the smallest about 1 1/2lb one at 4lb and another for Steven at over 3lb. Not a bad result in these challenging conditions.
One more picture to add of the fantastic weather and the unbelievable clarity of these magnificent lochs. This will probably be my last trip up this year but enough memories from fishing with my son to keep us going until we gat back next year.
Here's hoping that next year Covid is not as prevelant and that Durness goes back to its normal quieter self.
Looking forward to a return already.
Eddie
