It has been a while since I've posted a report on AR and as it is a nasty February Sunday evening here in the UK I thought that some of you might enjoy a few photos taken last season on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. Lewis is something of an exclusive destination in some respects and I suspect that the journey right the Western edge of the Old World weeds out the real sportsmen from those just looking to kill a deer. The deer forests are well known among those in the know but it is more widely known for its salmon fishing and it is probably one of the premier European fishing destinations with wonderful sea trout and brown trout fishing alongside the salmon.

In September I set out for a Lewis stag. Lewis isn't well suited to someone who wants to drive up the hill, step out and shoot their deer, and drive back down again and I was headed for one of the most remote spots in the UK, maybe Europe, to get my stag. Transport to work in the morning is by boat and the calm weather was a big advantage but even then the jump from the deck of the boat to the sea weed covered rocks had my heart in my mouth. The the boat was off leaving us to the job at hand:



The whole history of deer stalking and Scottish sport is in some way encapsulated on this ground and the current stalker succeeded his father, who followed his father, and so on back to 1876. The ground is remote and interesting but although remote the going wasn't too hard once we were up from the sea:



On landing we were among deer from the outset but we were able to spy a shootable stag in the distance and spent some considerable time stalking into him. As we went along we could see that he'd moved and we assumed he'd gone over the crest. None the less we progressed up the ravine cut by a small burn with some caution and just as the ground started to level out we saw that the deer were simply in some dead ground. After a bit of crawling the shot was on and the stag was down! I'm a great fan of the Nosler Partition but in this case the stag, although clearly hit in the right place, didn't seem like he was overly keen to die and he stayed on his feet for a little while before dropping. On examination the entry was spot on but the exit was very high up on the far side, almost by his spine. There was a lot of internal damage but clearly the bullet had taken a significant deflection inside the stag.



At this point the second part of our plan came into play. Although this is one of the most remote parts of the UK and accessible only by a very long walk or a boat the estate keeps a number of ponies on the ground to aid with extraction of the deer. The stalker is something of an expert in ponies and acts as a judge in the showring when ponies, and their tack, are being examined. When we were dropped in the morning to stalk into the north westerly breeze another boat was dropping two pony boys away to the North of us and they were going to spend the day working towards us. It was, therefore, a very relaxed lunch on the heather knowing that we'd not be dragging the stag and it was a truly memorable sight to see the ponies break the skyline and work their way down towards us:



It must be one of the classic Highland stalking experiences to sit on the heather eating sandwiches while the ponies come carefully down the hill to pick up the stag lying on the ground at our feet. In this case one of the ponies was relatively young and so was "in training" being encouraged to follow a much more experienced pony to learn how not to sink into the soft moorland. As you can see young Mango was not completely successful at avoiding the soft bits:



Once lunch was done the stag was loaded onto the pony and this in itself is something of an art form with many aspects of the tack and operation based upon many years of tradition and experience on the Scottish hills:



The plan was that we were going to try and shoot a second stag on the way out and soon the ponies were on their way with the first stag, I'm so glad I wasn't dragging him up this hill:



Eventually we parted ways with the ponies to try for another stag:



As it was a second stag wasn't to be. It was always a "bonus" as the wind wasn't ideal for us now and so although we did have one good stalk into a little group of stags we were unsuccessful and suspect they got wind of us and busted us.

With that it was back to more boats, this time the stag was dropped down the weed covered rocks and secured in the boat before we joined him for the return trip:





As already mentioned Lewis is a very famous fishing destination with the Grimersta fishery holding the record for the most Atlantic salmon caught in a day. The 2017 season was a little variable, and this is always the case with salmon and sea trout fishing, and was particularly bad for sea trout. Through choice I spent most of my time after brown trout however the rivers were in good order for a sea trout or a salmon:





Towards the end of the season I decided to take a few days after a salmon or two as it was starting to feel like I'd had the best of the brown trout fishing.

On my first day out the water and conditions were pretty good but I was completely useless and managed to lose 4 fish for the day, I didn't land a single fish. It happens to everyone I guess but even so was something of an unusual experience. However, I wasn't much annoyed as I really enjoyed the day out and so I decided to try again later in the week. Once more I got out in pretty good conditions:





I managed to grab what must be the best parking spot in world salmon fishing



It looked like it was going to be "another one of those days" as I fished up the river to my favourite lunch spot with nothing except for a few sea trout to show for my day. However, when lunch looks like this who really cares?



I set off to fish back down the river and again, despite almost perfect water, I wasn't catching any salmon.



On what was to be my last cast, almost right at the bottom of the river, I moved a fish in very disturbed water. Maybe I just imagined it but I was sure a fish moved to the fly. Often these fish will come again and after a bit of a struggle with wind and current I got the flies over the same spot and became attached to a fish. Now this fish didn't put up much of a run, it just simply sulked and slowly moved over to my side of the river, I'd only a few yards of line out. After some time it was becoming clear that it wasn't going to get tired any time soon and that it might be a fish of quite a respectable size. At this point it jumped onto the grass at my feet. At the time I remember wondering if there was a protocol for these occasions and if it were my duty to get in, seeing as how the fish had got out. However, the action of landing at my feet was having a negative psychological impact upon me as I was concerned what the second fly on my cast was going to tangle in and I could also see that, should I prevail, my net wasn't big enough. The fish, having engaged in enough psychological warfare for one day, elected to jump back into the river. The little visit to the bank clearly gave it some time to reflect that a more energetic approach might be necessary and it was in the air at least twice during the rest of the fight but, eventually, it came to the net. How? Well luckily the estate provide strategically positioned and very large landing nets and I was only 5 yards from one of these when I hooked the fish so I was able to retrieve it during the fight and have it at the ready:



With that I snipped off the flies and was done for the day.

The following day I had a few hours free in the morning and so I hit another local river, basically with the intention of walking up to a favourite spot and having some lunch. On the way up I also had a quick cast or two and this colourful chap joined me on the bank:



I then made my way up to the planned lunch spot, had lunch while enjoying the view, and then headed back down as I had some arrangements in the afternoon and so needed to make good progress. However, in the passing I spotted a bit of water that I'd never fished before but which looked just perfect at this height and after a few casts another fish joined me on the bank, I was starting to get into the hang of this now:



That was me done for the season so the fish was returned and the flies were quickly snipped off and I was away to my afternoon appointments with two fish in the book.

Thank you for sharing such a wonderful report . . . and your pictures are outstanding. I am envious of your adventure. Thanks again.

Thanks for posting- great report. Nice to see someone actually catching Atlantic salmon. Despite having fished for them in Scotland, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden, I've never managed to catch one!

quote:

Originally posted by Hannay:
Thanks for posting- great report. Nice to see someone actually catching Atlantic salmon. Despite having fished for them in Scotland, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden, I've never managed to catch one!

Glad you and Mike liked the report, it was fun to put it together and remember the days out while sitting indoors on a February day!

Salmon are a frustrating thing, and I guess that is the attraction as people fish for them because they aren't easy rather than because they are easy. I consider myself to be a trout angler who sometimes fishes for salmon but in my view salmon angling is about concatenating luck. This is not to say there isn't skill involved, exactly the opposite, but in the end the salmon decides to take your fly unlike, say, shooting the stag where I decided to fire the shot. At that point you need luck as the whole process is outside of your control but there can be a lot of skill in getting to that point. You need to understand water, and weather, and tides, and fish movement and all these things and you need to be lucky enough that they all come right when you are going fishing, or you need to only go fishing when they are right. I'd guess you were probably a visitor when you tried for a salmon and so you only had very limited time and that makes things very difficult as it means you have to fish in conditions when a local person might not bother going out.

I'm very lucky in that I'm fishing on Lewis where we have easy access to salmon in the estuary, the river and the lochs. This means that fish can be caught in most conditions rather than, say, being restricted to a river where fish may only be caught in certain water conditions. Although our fishing pressure is quite light and we don't get many fish before the main runs in July, so our season is short, we probably do better in terms of "fish per angler hour" than anywhere else. In my case I usually "follow the sport" and so I go for brown trout, sea trout or salmon when the conditions are suitable but a visitor determined to get a salmon doesn't really have that luxury.

The other thing to remember is that just like everyone on the internet shoots 1/2 inch groups at 600 yards all day every day so everyone on the internet who goes salmon fishing catches a pile of fish. This simply isn't true, last season I only went out for salmon when the conditions were right so it looks like I had a salmon or two every day I was out but if you'd just picked a random day and sent me out the chances are the story would have been different.

I shot the following (just holiday snaps really) in April when chasing a Lewis Spring salmon. I knew with complete certainty I was going to get one this year, no idea how, and nipped up for a cast and had one in the first half hour. To put this in perspective the Spring fishing (we don't really have a Spring fishery) lasts over 3 months and last season 4 fish were caught :-)

https://youtu.be/IxnMIPCmU2I

The following is more general fishing, and other stuff, shot over the last season and there are a few nice trout lochs and spots for sea trout in here as well:

https://youtu.be/DNwnwW_9V6k

https://youtu.be/bTcggEGKohk

Good luck with the salmon, but don't give up or imagine that everyone else is doing better than you. Some people might be getting more lucky than you but fishing for salmon as a visitor is tricky and if you keep at it then you will get a "good week." A few years back I was in a tackle shop on Lewis and bumped into two other, random, visiting anglers: between the 3 of us we had 20 salmon on the previous day. I could pretend that is normal, but it isn't, but some day you'll find yourself in that position.

Tanks for the report, Nice write up!

I

Great photos and report. The Hebrides is on my bucket list to visit, stalking and fishing besides.

caorach,

Thanks for a great hunt/fish report with some solid photos to support your prose.

Well Done.

Waidmannsheil!

That is truly beautiful.

Caorach,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply on the salmon fishing. It is as you say- the salmon fishing was often incidental to other plans, and either the salmon weren't there or they were jumping everywhere and biting nowhere.

In the U.K. And Scandinavia, I've done far better on trout, grayling, and pike - even caught a sea trout on the west coast of Sweden- but will have to keep trying for salmon.

Nice video!

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:
That is truly beautiful.

It is the most fantastic place, I'm sort of semi-resident these days and just can't think of a more remarkable place to spend my time.

@Hannay - keep at it! It really is difficult to get a salmon as a visitor. The other thing is to enjoy your fishing, don't focus on the catching but rather on the day out. I've seen people who just "must" catch a salmon flog the same few yards of bank for a whole week just so they can tell their friends that they've had a salmon. Maybe they enjoyed this, but my money says they didn't and it was a lot of pressure and stress and they'd have had a lot more fun trying different places, having a day at brown trout, maybe trying for a sea trout in the estuary etc. So you see and enjoy yourself in the process!

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Wonderful text and pictures ! Thank you for posting and sharing and well done on the stag and fish!

AR is indeed a small world ! As it happens we have booked Grimersta for a weeks sport in September 2019. A week of salmon and walked up grouse.

Your post sets the scene wonderfully! Thank you.

Charlie

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Stunning!!! What a beautiful setting for "outdoor" activities.

Waidmannsheil!

Don

quote:

Originally posted by Charlie64:

AR is indeed a small world ! As it happens we have booked Grimersta for a weeks sport in September 2019. A week of salmon and walked up grouse.
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You will be sure of a cracking week. I know that sometimes July is seen as the prime salmon weeks in the Hebrides but in my view there is nothing to beat September with the potential for more changeable weather and the moor starting to change to autumn colours. Grimersta is probably still the premier destination for the "old money" salmon angler and genuine sportsman so I am certain it will exceed your expectations. If you have the Hugh Falkus book on salmon angling you will note that there is a section in it on fishing Grimersta but Falkus has to admit that he's never fished there himself :-) Says it all really.

This is a small group at grouse above the Long Pool last October, they actually got a few just by the river and I delayed my walk up by a little while to give them a clear run at it:



Also give some consideration to a day at deer, especially if you are fit. Actually, even for grouse it might be worth mentioning that the fitter you come the more you will enjoy your time on Lewis, this is real, genuine wild sport and even in Scotland that's not as common as you imagine, especially when sold to tourists.

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Really appreciate your pointers and suggestions ! Big thanks. And again, wonderful report and pictures.

Charlie

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Great photos and hunt, congrats !

Brilliant report and stunning photos. You are lucky to enjoy these places.


Best-
Locksley,R