TWO FISHING STORIES TOLD
By Johnnie Sutherland
Johnnie Sutherland, always spoken of locally as Johnnie Hardy is a ghillie on the Helmsdale river in Sutherland - a fine man, expert in salmon fishing and the lore of the Strath of Kildonan. It was my great good fortune to fish with him on most of the seventeen consecutive years I fished the Helmsdale. He would often tell stories on these fishing days, sometimes standing on the bank of a pool, sometimes in the hut at lunch time. The stories were told with great delight in that memorable brand of English which Sutherland Scots use. One year, I took up a small tape recorder and let it listen in to a few of his tales and I give you here two of his stories of Helmsdale fishing , verbatim, with absolutely minimal editing to get his inimitable tapes into print.
Johnnies Story of ......
THE WRONG PILLS
"I was up, on upper three on the Helmsdale early one morning in August - I think it was eight oclock in the morning -fishing with a man I will just call Mr B and the river was running about two feet up, which is quite high for that time of year. The midges that day were absolutely terrible. We fished quite hard and about 9.30 a.m. we hooked our first fish of the morning and we landed it ten minutes after. Mr B said to me Johnnie, take the fish back to the car and get a flask of tea for me. Now, it is about five hundred yards over the moor from that beat to the car, - a long way - but when I was walking back I heard him shouting I've hooked another one ! I was well away by this time so I just kept walking to the car, put the fish in and then looked back over the moor to where Mr B was fishing but I couldnt see him. Thats strange, I thought. I suspected something was wrong and went back over the moor as fast as I could. Well, I got to this high bank and looked down and saw him floating down the river, face down, with his head below the water and I thought he was dead. So I jumped into the water, which is quite fast running there, and got him to the bank, but I couldnt get him up the high bank because of the water which is quite heavy at that point, so I had to pull him back upstream to where he fell in. "I laid him on the bank and he began to revive a little, and when he came to the first thing he said to me was, Wheres my rod ? So I said, I dont know where your fishing rod is ! He asked again, but I didnt want to leave him there to look for it. Eventually, I said that if it would be all right with him I would leave him there for a few minutes and I would go and look for his rod. I looked quite hard, went down the river for a couple of hundred yards and walked back up, but I couldnt see anything. Then all of a sudden, a little thing came up out of the water and moved up and down, just like a finger pointing. It was the tip of his rod ! I waded out, up to my neck almost, but couldnt reach it, for it was too deep, so I waded back into the bank a took the net and managed to find the line and got the net under it and brought it to the bank. I got back to the bank near Mr B and said Your lines round a rock. But as I handled the line I thought I felt something. The fish was still on ! Mr B was lying recovering on the bank, but he wanted the fish brought in. So I said to him, Its round a stone. Ill have to cross over to free the line. Well, I waded up to the neck to cross the river, got hold of the rod, brought the salmon in and landed it on the other bank, then thought I had better get Mr B to the doctor. "It was not very easy on the long path over the moor, but we got to the car and I drove him to hospital. They kept him in bed for two days. Then they told him what had happened. He had been on tablets for his blood pressure, things supposed to slow him down and for some reason. It seemed he had been given the wrong pills and they had brought his blood pressure down so far he was liable to pass out at any time and this had happened when he was playing that fish and I was away up the path.
"About three weeks later the phone rang and it was Mr B saying that he was sending a helicopter up for me to come down and play golf in Cheshire and down I went, and when I got out of the helicopter there was a crowd of people waiting for me and clapping. So I enjoyed my golf and they flew me back up to Sutherland in a helicopter. He seemed to think I had saved his life. Either that or it was because I found his rod with the salmon still on; Im not sure. "
Johnnies Bishop Story
NO PROBLEMS FOR THE BISHOP
"A bishop from Leicester or someplace like that, -a very distinguished man but new to salmon fishing,- came to the Helmsdale with his sister. We were on four above, and I said to him You fish Altnahonisgal and Ill take Miss Isla up to the Burn, the Junction and Placers, which was the top of the beat. And I said, if you hook a fish bishop, just blow your whistle, Psssst...Pssst! like this . Just you blow and Ill come down and help you. "Well, we were half way up to the top of the beat when we heard, Psssst...Pssst ! The whistle ! So I says to Miss Isla, You fish that pool and Ill walk down to the bishop.
No, no! she said, Well both walk down to see what happens. " He wasnt very experienced with taking a fish and bringing it ashore, so we did that.
We walked down and there is a bridge across the burn just above Altnahonisgal and we crept round the corner, keeping down, and heres the bishop, blowing his whistle and playing a fish and we just watched, and he played the fish for about ten minutes from a shingle island and then he went into the water and pushed and kicked the fish up out the river onto the shingle, jumped on top of it and tried to lift it into his arms. But the fish just slipped through his arms and before you knew it, it was back into the river.
"I said, Miss Isla, Ill better go and help him.
No, no ! she said, Well wait and see what happens.
"The bishop played the fish for another five or six minutes and again, went down into the river and kicked the poor thing back on to the shingle, but he kicked it just a wee bit too hard and it went right over the shingle, into the bit of river behind and shot up under the bridge above and into the burn above that. So he started playing the fish from the river with his line going right up under the bridge with the fish up the burn . He blew his whistle again.
"So I said to Miss Isla, Look Id better.... but the whistle went Psssst....Psssst ! This bloody whistle went and went and we were just peeping over this corner watching. So I said again, Id better go down and help him, and she said, No no ! Lets see what happens !
"Well, at the third or fourth attempt the bishop got the fish to come down the burn. He brought him down under the bridge and went into the river again and kicked the fish yet again on to the shingle and fell on top of it. But this time he held it. He took the hook out and got out of the river and began walking up the bank with the salmon in his arms. I ran down and Miss Isla came behind me.
"The bishop saw me coming. Go back! Go back! he shouted at me. I didnt need you. Ive had no problems at all ! "
You can find more articles in the archive under A Line On Scottish Fishing.
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