Fishing The Fly Scotland Forum

James Laraway

Wee trip to Assynt - and some lessons....
« on: 20/09/2021 at 09:42 »
So, last Wednesday I got an invite to pop up to Assynt for a few days to wet a line that I was more than happy to accept.

Arrived at lunchtime on Wed and fished Borralan. Although the fish were not 'totally on' still managed perhaps a dozen for the afternoon which was great fun. Nothing big size wise but more than enough to keep me amused. Best fly - pink tailed loch ordie....

On Thursday we were due to have a boat on Veyatie but there was a bit of a mix-up and when we got to where the boats were we needed to phone the estate office. This is where it gets interesting.
Where you pick the keys up for the boats is at the head of perhaps a 0.5 mile track which heads downhill to the loch. When we got down there I started unloading my gear, however didnt get phone reception so needed to drive back up the track to see if I got reception where we picked the keys up. Stuff back in the car, pressed the start button ( new car has one of these 'proximity keys' which means you can start the car if the key is close enough by pressing the start button) and off we went. Parked at the top of the track, turned the engine off and tried to phone again. No reception. Though " I'll drive a wee bit further and get reception...."
Pressed start - "key not detected"
What ?
Pressed again - " key not detected"  *smiley-shocking*
Oh God, i must have dropped it at the lochside next to the car allowing the car to start and me drive away without the key ! Now I am 0.5 miles away , cant start the car, have no spare key and cant even lock the car.
Ran back down to the loch in my waders - no key to be found ( at least i hadn't ran over it which was a small mercy - as otherwise i'd be in real trouble)
Ran back to the car  - slowly as it was uphill and sunny !
Jumped into the car - " key not detected"
went through all the boot contents, checked under the seats - nothing
Tried the start/stop again - the car started ?!?!?? *smiley-shocking*
Turns out the key was in the bottom of one of my wader jacket pockets but as my jacket has 6 pockets i missed it. The reason the car couldn't 'see' the key was i had my mobile phone in one of my other pockets and it was interfering with the signal....

Lesson 1 -  technology is a pain in the .......and you can start and then drive away a car without having a key on board !

After that nightmare had the rest of the day on Loch Cam. Of course fishing was really hard as it was very hot, sunny and there was no wind.
At least we didn't blank, although it was a close run thing.....





Thursday night opted to leave my waders to dry under an open porch at the cottage.

Friday morning, went to put the waders on , looked at the left foot. Looked again. What's wrong with the fabric ? It looks......MOUSE ATTACK. Uuuuuuuuurgh. The little........

Had they nibbled the material enough to make it leak ? That was soon answered when i stood in Loch Borralan .....

Lesson 2 - never leave your waders outside

Still , at least the fish were biting !

Which brings me to:
Lesson 3 - the best lochs are sometimes the ones right next to the roadside, just where you least expect them








Mike Barrio

Re: Wee trip to Assynt - and some lessons....
« Reply #1 on: 20/09/2021 at 10:12 »
Great stuff James ..... there's an adventure round every corner in Assynt  >)

Gadgets and electrickery  *smiley-grin* ..... we've all been there!

Cheers
Mike

Alex Russell

Re: Wee trip to Assynt - and some lessons....
« Reply #2 on: 21/09/2021 at 13:51 »
Nice report James glad it turned out ok in the end, I lost my keys a few weeks ago after taking the fishing gear out the car and putting it the garage I could not find my car keys pockets, bag, car all checked just as well I have a key safe outside so got into the house, two days later it was wet out and needed my wellies to walk the dogs, keys had fallen into my boot doh.

James Laraway

Re: Wee trip to Assynt - and some lessons....
« Reply #3 on: 21/09/2021 at 14:55 »
You do wonder what is wrong with just good old-fashioned car keys....( the answer is nothing what-so-ever !)

Proximity keys and start-stop buttons are just hi-tech gimmicks that cause more problems that they solve - being able to drive a car away from the keys being just one example. The other being that while at home you need to keep proximity keys in a Faraday Cage 'pouch' to stop thieves with scanning devices from scanning and cloning your keys from outside your house then nicking your car without needing to have the key........

Isn't technology wonderful when it just makes things less secure !

Terry Coging

Re: Wee trip to Assynt - and some lessons....
« Reply #4 on: 21/09/2021 at 17:44 »
James was very kind with his first report.  He forgot to mention that I had booked a boat on Loch Veyattie for Thursday only to find that the two boats had already gone out?? James checked my printed booking receipt - and guess what? I had booked it for Wednesday!! I had already given James a bit of a run around in the car so he must have been well miffed. That was before the vanishing car key incident. I gave him permission to smack me but he showed great patience.
The fishing - James caught quite a few more than me with his wee glass 4 weight which looked so skinny next to my 15' wafting rod. It was not a 'wafting' week, being too calm and bright.  During the whole week there were only 2 x 5 minute periods where I could work the top dropper correctly (bit like dapping).  The fish wanted the pulled wet flies. I plugged on with the wafter hoping for a bit of wind but it just didn't happen. At least I caught twice as many as James on Loch Cam - he had one and I had two  :X2  There was no fly life about all week. No wind to blow terrestrials on to the Loch - not a daddy or anything else to be seen.
I just love being up there though.  Thanks for the great company and yarns James  :z16

Graham Nicol

Re: Wee trip to Assynt - and some lessons....
« Reply #5 on: 22/09/2021 at 08:00 »
Fishing buddy of mine has a Tesla and we had an interesting tech problem when we fished the Tweed. Arrived at the beat and went and had a chat with the ghilie. As we went back to the car my buddy said "strange car is locked" which should not be the case as it unlocks automatically if you have the keys with you. He looked into the car and there they were sitting on the seat. Never mind he said I have an app on my phone and can unlock it with that. The phone was in the car. So he got the ghilie to call Tesla looking up their number on the web and they said they can open the car remotely if my buddy can answer 3 security questions. Fortunately he passed the test and the car opened in front of us. It transpires they did a software update overnight and it overrode all features that had been set up.
Luckily that happened in an area with reception. If we had been in the back of nowhere then we would have been hitch hiking!
Tech is great when it works but a nightmare when it doesn't

James Laraway

Re: Wee trip to Assynt - and some lessons....
« Reply #6 on: 23/09/2021 at 09:21 »
I just love being up there though.  Thanks for the great company and yarns James  :z16

It was lovely to meet up with a fellow forum member for a bit of fishing so thank you very much for your hospitality  Terry  :z16

 




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