By Bill Currie
I like the oriental proverb which reminds us that there are many doors to paradise. The idea fits the problems of planning fishing in Scotland in a curious way. The number of ways to arrange fishing in Scotland is growing; the number of fishings on offer has never been higher; the availability of what were formerly virtually closed waters is striking. So, if all these factors are positive, can we assume that arranging a fishing trip in Scotland is very easy indeed ? In way, it is. Doors open if you knock on them. My own experience, however, is that the problems in planning fishing arise not because there is a lack of fishings available, but because there is a lack of information, or a need to know exactly where the right information is. In one phrase, for effective planning of a Scottish trip, first find the right door to knock on.
One of the traditional doors to use is taking a let of a beat. In the past this was almost always a matter of personal contact with the owner or his agent, and the lets were almost always in blocks of one week. This is still a normal way to take fishings, especially those which last for a week or more. There were lots of repeat bookings and on some waters and at peak times, there still are. A change has overtaken this sector, however. Firstly, there are more vacancies than there were formerly. Further, I have found that lets shorter than one week are much more plentiful than they once were, on Tweed, Tay and Dee for instance. There are several reasons for this. One is that estates on some rivers are actively seeking tenants. This may be a hangover from the recession, but we may also be seeing a new, more flexible, pattern of letting emerging. Another cause might be that quite a number of good salmon and sea trout fishings in Scotland are now let by time-share owners and these fishings may be available in three-day units, or by the day, in a way which the estates might not formerly have been able to handle. In general, there is a new attitude dawning. Those who let fishings are beginning to realise that people are more mobile and more flexible than they ever were in taking time off to fish in Scotland. Also when they are up north, they may want to sample more than one piece of fishing. Why not spend three days on a salmon river and three days in the north-west trout fishing a different loch each day ? This is how the market is now defining itself and the availability of more flexible units of fishing reflects this.
A major change leading to more flexible letting is undoubtedly linked with new forms of communication. We are all completely familiar with the phone and the fax, but a new era seems to be dawning in how these means are used to access fishings. First of all, some agents are offering freephone numbers ( 0800) . Lots of information can be had over the phone now, - water heights, beat availability and similar details. Tweed has a sophisticated system called Tweedline, run for the benefit of the Tweed Foundation using 0891 numbers. These are premium lines, earning a few pence each call for the Foundation, but giving an excellent service on three different numbers, - Catches and Reports; River Heights; Last-minute Lets. The river heights are updated daily. I use this service regularly. Dee and Spey have, in recent seasons also set up information and letting availability services. There is a sense in which the phone is beginning to be used well for planning Scottish fishing, but, apart from the Tweed, the system is only now developing elsewhere in Scotland.
There is also an interesting computer-based system used on Tweed and run by James Leeming, the main agent for salmon letting on the river on a 24-hour automated service (for the river Tweed only, at present) tel: (0)1573-470322. A series of computer terminals has been set up on Tweedside and elsewhere, including London. These give information on a whole range of fishings available and you can choose your dates and place, then actually book your fishings on the terminal. This innovative system is to be expanded soon and it has the potential to work well for whole areas. I would have thought that the growth of local angling improvement associations, and the like, - a thoroughly welcome feature of recent Scottish fishing - would make it possible for many more local booking systems like this to develop.
The major way ahead in booking fishings is likely to be the Internet. Broadly, the Internet is a way in which your own home or office computer can be linked with a modem via a local call on the phone line to a vast array of services and sales. The best known of the Internet services is e-mail, cheap and fast correspondence. Another of the available Internet services is called the world-wide-web, and on various web pages you can get descriptions of salmon beats, colour pictures, 5-year catches, costs and accommodation . I list some of the addresses below. What we are witnessing here is potentially the biggest change in information gathering on fishings, and booking your access, since the days of the penny black.
I hasten to remind you that the printed word is far from dead, when it comes to planning fishings in Scotland, even if we are a little bit dazzled with Internet developments. While many local tourist boards produce booklets about their fishing, undoubtedly the key publication for gamefishers is Scotland for Fishing, available in tackle shops and bookshops. It has excellent information, giving addresses of a very wide range of fishings, from club water to hotel fishings and fishings with cottages. The 1998 issue includes colour road maps and river maps. This booklet illustrates well the various ways fishing can be accessed. Club fishings with day tickets are given; hotels with river and loch fishings are listed area by area; there are features on different aspects of Scottish fishing, with pictures and maps. In all fishing planning, the key matter is getting the right phone number, or address. Information reigns, and this booklet gathers together much of the publicly available access to Scottish waters as well as club and estate fishings.
In all fishing planning, you must have a broad picture of what you want. There is no point in looking for spring salmon fishing in March in the West Highlands. Equally, not every river has a run of fresh salmon in the autumn. Some of our best spring and summer rivers close at the end of September. Without research, you could easily find yourself knocking on the wrong door, without research. The least you should do is imagine what you would like your holiday to bring you. Then do a bit of research ( via river reports in the angling press, for example) to indicate where and when your fishings are likely to be available. Get a broad idea of which region of Scotland you want to be in, - south-east Lowlands, Southern Uplands and Galloway, the Western Highlands and Islands, Aberdeenshire and the North East, the Far North. Then go to the booklets. Phone up hotels or agents and read their brochures. Look at web pages if they are available for your holiday area. I do not say that this array of information is brilliantly focused, but it is improving each year and, if my hunches are right, will take a huge leap forward very soon via the Internet. The objects of the exercise are first to imagine your holiday, then identify the door leading to what you want. After that you do the obvious thing, - you knock on it and it opens. If you think this is just woolly and probably unworkable advice. Let me assure you that I use this sort of data to fix my own Scottish fishing and I live among it. Two days before I wrote this article, I used the Tweed computer system at the last minute to book the opening day of the salmon season on lower Tweed. Go on, ask me how I did. Well, I failed to get a springer, - not for the first time, but it was a great day on a lovely beat. As far as I know, there is not yet any system, electronic or otherwise, which can guarantee that a salmon will actually take your fly.
Useful numbers:
Tweedline
0891-666-410 Catches and Prospects
0891-666-411 River Heights
0891-666-412 Last Minute Lets
James Leemings List of Beats
FREEPHONE 0800-387-675
E-mail and Web addresses:
leeming@scotborders.co.uk
http://www.scotborders.co.uk
http://www.scotborders.co.uk/holidaynet (Accommodation and fishings)
You can find more articles in the archive under A Line On Scottish Fishing.
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