Largest 28 lb
Davie Stewart and I both had salmon take a smallish fly (size 8) deep in the mouth while fishing from the Pitlochry Bank below the Dam this morning. Fortunately, both were safely returned without the bleeding that can accompany this kind of take. Mine's looked too difficult to mess around with a forceps removal so I quickly bit through the nylon - probably giving the salmon an extra scare that I was going to give it a kiss. Sometimes the loss of a fly is best though and I guess some people would say mine's aren't worth keeping anyway. Like I do for my trout fishing, I tie nameless patterns that evolve in the vice and then disappear from the little memory I have left. The snipped-off fly was another odd creation brought about by a lifelong serious disorder in storing fly-tying materials. I know it had a silver body and a group of Golden Pheasant crest feathers for the tail -for extra 'kick' was the thinking - but I can't remember the rest of it, so don't ask for a name. Davie's fish took hard as his wee shrimp fly was swinging through the fast water towards the head of the Blue Stones. Mine's was a slow, hand-stripping job when the fly began fishing through quieter water, almost directly below me, a classic time for a fish to take deeper in the mouth than we prefer for a tidy release, although both worked out well. (AFW)