Today is a day for planning and preparation of all the things we’ll need for our forthcoming trip to the River Tay at Kenmore. It will be young Tales first salmon fishing adventure in Scotland. Some two years have past since we last went to Wales in search of sea-trout. I’m not sure where that time has gone,in fact time is now passing by all too quickly. Is that something that happens with old age or just that our lives in this modern and ever changing world are all too consumed by the internet and the information highway? For sure it has helped in being able to research quickly and acquire all manner of fishing tackle at a touch of a button or tap on a screen.
It will be early April when we head north, for me back to familiar territory but for youngy Tales a new adventure. He is so eager that he mentions the trip every day, if not every hour. The pages of Trout & Salmon are being turned like never before and it will be a trip up in the loft for me to retrieve the box of reels, fly boxes and salmon lures – flying C’s, Abu and Mepps plus a few old Devon Minnows. I will take my old Hardy Jet #9, hopefully a usable rod for my fishing partner. Some years ago I purchased a Sage 15ft #10 but it’s never really been used. I think the last trip to the Tay I ended up spinning most of the time.
Today is the last day of the Fly Fishing Show at the Business Design Centre in Islington, unfortunately we won’t be able to make it which is a shame as it would have been an opportunity to discuss with the guys from Tay Fishing who are exhibiting there. I’ll just have to catch up on phone with them. I have fished the Tay on the Cargill beat before back in 2001, a great streatch of water in front of the Balathie House Hotel. The day I fished it is was productive for those spinning but more challenging on the fly.
Hopefully it will be a rewarding trip for my young companion, as he has already said ‘I don’t really mind if I don’t catch a salmon, it’s just the opportunity to be by the river and out in the open air’, music to my ears.