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With the colder weather settling in, the summer lure gear has been cleaned down and it’s time to turn attention to Autumn and Winter targets. With a young family, I don’t get a whole lot of time to fish in general but the easiest way to squeeze a session in 9 times out of 10 is to go at night when everyone’s tucked up!

Which is handy at this time of year because, as with most anglers, attentions have turned to the prospect of a nice plump Codling for the table.

Admittedly I’m not much of a cod angler, but I do like to get out for them a few times over winter, braving wind, rain, snow and rough, stormy seas in the hopes of a pig with fins.

A plan was hatched with Steve who was up in Newbiggin for a short caravan holiday to hit the rocks on Friday night with conditions looking promising. By the time Friday came though there was a bit more easterly in the swell which makes the mark we chose originally a little bit sketchy, so to play it safe we decided to hit the promenade at Whitley Bay. I haven’t fished here in a good few years but with it being almost directly south facing, the sting is taken out of even the biggest of northerly seas, and it can end up being one of the few places fishable in the area during such conditions.

I went out a bit earlier than was necessary, which was just as well as arriving in the car park I realised I’d left all my bait behind in the freezer, so I had to make the half hour drive home again to pick it up! In the end I arrived back an hour after originally intended, coincidentally just as Steve was pulling up. We were still a tad early as this spot tends to do best (in my own experience at least) 2-3 hours up and up to 2 hours down depending on the tide size, but at least we were assured a space. The mark is quite consistent in these conditions so I was hopeful of a few fish.

The North Easterly wind was pretty brutal and the bank of the car park was doing little to dampen it, but since we’d chosen a spot that was southerly facing, we could at least turn our backs to it and still keep an eye on the rods. I’m not used to seeing my Mk1 Carbon Metal Crest bouncing about so much, they’re usually pretty solid, but the wind was side on and gusting beyond 30mph so I suppose I should have expected it.

Steve was first and second off the mark with a couple of smaller codling to worm baits, both undersized but at least a sign that there was fish in the area. With the wind I’d be surprised if we were managing to cast more than 50-60 yards at best but it was clearly enough.

My first couple of bait ups had been worm mixed with cart and had yielded nothing but stripped hooks. I like to take a selection of baits cod fishing and find I have better success changing things up when I’m not getting bites on a particular bait, so I swapped the cart for a lugworm and squid wrap to see if that would entice anything.

Between the constant wind movement of the rod it was still easy to discern the obvious thump of a fish 10 minutes later and when reeling in I could tell it was a bit bigger. A few seconds later I had a lovely codling at my feet which tipped the scales at bang on 4lb. Happy with that for the first of the year!

We fished on a bit longer with renewed confidence but unfortunately Steve had to leave a little earlier than intended, and with the best of the tide behind us I decided to call it an evening as well – satisfied with ending on a high with a decent fish for supper tomorrow.

With the temperature dropping below freezing this week I’m sure I’ll be out again in the coming weeks.

Per my last blog Summer 2025 Roundup, it has been an extremely poor season (for me at least) on the lure fishing front. I definitely think I’ve ran up more hours and miles than last year and yet only 2 Bass graced my net all season. Yes – there was a few losses, but even then, managing to hook a fish was a rare thing and success hasn’t been anywhere near as consistent as last year. Even my banker marks failed to live up to expectations.

So I didn’t really hold out much hope for my last outing. But as always, that ill placed optimism crept in at the sight of some favourable conditions on one of those banker marks I talked about and, against my better judgement, I decided to have a go for what will probably be my last try of the season.

On arriving I was slightly disheartened to find the water quite coloured, with visibility only about 2ft in places and a murky brown. This was quite surprising as it has been settled for a good week since the last stir up, although the smooth <1ft swell that the forecasters had promised yet again turned out to be underestimated – the swell was quite lazy but the secondary was more like 2-3 foot.

No combination of flinging hard and soft plastic into the murk seemed to be doing anything though and it wasn’t long before I was starting to lose interest, having already thrashed the hell out of it for an hour and a half.

I decided to move north to a different mark in the hope that the visibility might be improved. It was worse! A couple of inches at best.

Dilemma

Resigned to the idea that this clearly wasn’t going to happen, I began heading further south, intending to stop off at an estuary along the way to see if it was worth a try or not. Half way there though I decided I couldn’t be bothered and instead decided to just jump back on the first mark, which would be half an hour before high water now and, given the large tide, I was hoping that maybe enough water had pushed through to clear the colour somewhat.

This actually turned out to be a good theory. Clarity hadn’t improved drastically, but it was more like 3ft visibility now rather than the 1-2ft previously. I’d clipped on a feed shallow in white to try and make as much noise as possible, hoping to draw something in, but they either weren’t there or weren’t interested.

As the tide slackened I spotted a sea trout jumping off the edge of the reef so quickly switched to a green seeker. They are supposed to be the fish of a thousand casts but at this point I was willing to try anything to get a bend in the rod. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with these seekers. They absolutely sail out into even the worst head wind and they have a lovely action, especially when you stop them dead and hang them in the water to let them spin. Apparently this is a killer tactic the Scandinavians employ for sea trout called “spin stop” and I can see why as it looks very enticing.

Anyway, I have a lot of confidence using seekers – but – I haven’t actually caught an awful lot on them, and have never actually caught a single Bass on one.

However. After a dozen or so casts FINALLY my luck changed as a fish slammed the seeker halfway back through the retrieve. Initially presuming it was a sea trout I was delighted when it turned out to be a small schoolie. It was netted without any real fuss but despite its modest size it’s the most welcome fish I’ve had all summer. And my first on a seeker as well!

I followed it up with a dozen or so more casts but by now the tide was ebbing, and from experience of the mark you only really get an hour of the ebb at the most before the fish move on, so I called it an evening.

So ends another Bass season. Like I say It’s been a really poor year for me, but I’ve got a few new marks under my belt which I need to spend more time on next season to get them cracked. Attention now turns to a mix of winter Cod interspersed with the occasional Stillwater fly fishing trip I think. Quite looking forward to both

What a summer 2025 has been, in weather terms at least. Like most of the country, where I live in the North East enjoyed/suffered from a sustained period of virtually no rain between May and August, running the local reservoirs low even by our usual standards – although not quite drastic enough to invoke the hospice bans seen in some of the counties further south.

Bass Fishing

For the most part I’ve stuck to a similar pattern to the last few years post covid and continued with my obsessive pursuit of Bass on lures. However the objective this year was to primarily fish some new marks, and hopefully unlock some success by fishing conditions alternative to that which would be favourable on the marks I’ve fished to death. Most of my well frequented spots I know from experience fish over high water, the larger the tide being typically the best correlation to success. Having to coincide this with dusk/dawn, flat calm seas which are also key success factors, I found was limiting my opportunity to get out and catch fish so I was determined this year to crack somewhere that would fish over low tide or on the ebb tide, to give me more options and ultimately time on the water.

It was a sound plan – and sort of worked, although not in the way I might have liked.

To summarise in a sentence, I’ve caught one Bass. All bloody season! Catch wise it has been the worst season in 4 at the time of writing – this time last year I was well over double figures with substantially less fishing time.

You might think this fairly typical considering I’ve only been to my well used marks twice, otherwise exclusively concentrating my fishing on new marks. Although I do think it’s a factor, I think the fishing in general has on a whole been really poor. Speaking to other anglers, some of which are definitely more experienced than me when it comes to lure fishing for Bass, it’s clear that it’s been a hard season – with comparatively less fish being landed than recent years. Slightly puzzling as in contrast the baitfish stocks have been absolutely booming – with sprats and sandeels in absolute glutenous proportions, although perhaps this is because the Bass aren’t around in their usual numbers to thin them down.

Despite the above, one of the lads I fish with HAS actually had an alright season, with a few schoolies falling victim to sandeel pencils – and happily for me although I was rarely there at the time of capture, they have been caught on the same mark and on ebbing tides. So through his catches, I have (sort of!) achieved my objective of diversifying my repertoire of marks and conditions. It’s a consolation anyway for what has been a very underwhelming season for me personally. There’s still time to remedy it though – hopefully a nice Autumn PB helps to make up for it.

Sea Trout – A new interest

I said the primary focus all summer has been Bass, and it’s an accurate summary. As most Bass anglers will attest to though, another fish you often see, especially in muddy estuary’s or the shallow reefs on the open coast, is Sea Trout. I’ve caught a few of these in the past, almost always whilst bait fishing for other species, or occasionally targeting them deliberately with small spinners on remote Scottish lochs. But despite seeing them leaping from the water pretty much every time I go fishing when it’s flat calm, sometimes as little as 10 foot away from where I’m wading, I’ve not really actively tried to catch them.

With the lack of rain this summer though, they have been hanging around the coast in HUGE numbers – I don’t remember seeing as many sea trout as I have this year. One of the lads I fish with (Marc) landed one as by catch when we were out one evening for Bass, which lead me to attempt to get one a few weeks later.

As the dawn beckoned, I’d been casting a white savage gear seeker at the same 3 fish for what seemed like ages. They were honestly taking the p***, as I’ been watching them jump out of the water every 30 seconds about 20 yards away for ages, with the now actively ebbing tide doing little to persuade them to move on from the skeer they were over. In fact the water had gotten so low I could see their fins sticking out of the top of the water as they positioned themselves along the edge of the bladderwrack in less than a foot deep, readying themselves for another lunge at the patch of sandeels that hadn’t managed to vacate to cover before the betraying sunrise.

Somehow (with the help of the single hook I imagine) I was still managing to keep the seeker over the top of the rock with a reasonably fast retrieve without it hanging up – there honestly can’t have been more than a foot of water over the top of this skeer. After what seemed like the 100th time covering these fish, finally WHALLOP – A PB seatrout hit the lure like a train and immediately went into full fish tantrum mode in its bid for freedom. This was a really nice fish and all the time I’m thinking to myself “there’s no way you’re landing this – any minute now it’s gonna throw the hook”, something which seatrout are notorious for being able to do with their ability to turn fully in on themselves and spin and flip like maniacs, using the weight of the lure to literally leverage the hook free.

Thanks perhaps to the double split ring at the hook end of the lure (a deliberate design tactic to mitigate against these particular hook slips), the fish stayed on long enough for me to get it to my feet. I’ve some experience with trout fishing in freshwater and at a guess would estimate the fish somewhere around 7lb, which would have made my old PB not even worth looking at.

Unfortunately though, you guessed it, the inevitable happened and with a final leap from the water literally a yard In front of me it finally managed to get itself free and off it went like a shot. I was obviously gutted, but not altogether surprised – these fish are so good at freeing themselves from the hook. But it has lit a flame and made me want to actively target them more next season. Until now I’ve not bothered buying the purpose made line thru or inline lures that are designed to mitigate against hook pulls, so I guess I’ll have to remedy that!

Shore Skate fishing is pretty pointless during summer

As per my blog post earlier in the summer “A not so productive trip to the west coast of Scotland”, this years only Scotland trip didn’t amount to much more than a couple of Wrasse, Spurdogs, Dogfish and a solitary Thornback. Most of the shore Skate fishing we do on the west coast of Scotland is from the marks on the shallower side, generally in less than 100ft of water, where darkness can be a crucial factor to success. You will get the odd fish showing in shallower water during the day, but I’m not exaggerating when I say chances are improved by at least 10 times by fishing at night.

Unsurprising then that the trip in June yielded no Skate – with only 1 run in 4 days which never hooked up and in all honesty could have just as easily been an overly enthusiastic Thornback choking on the bait. So I think future efforts will be confirmed to the cooler, darker side of the calendar going forward.

A return to Anglesey

My 5 year old has developed an interest in fishing, much to my delight, and his most recent trip combined car camping with 2 days species hunting in North Wales. Nothing too exciting as we were limited by weather and tides particularly on day 2, but between Holyhead and Amlwch we managed a few species points with Ballans, Corkwings, Goldsinneys, Tompot Blenny, Poor Cod, Pouting, Pollock and Rock Gobies – and dogfish on the distance rods. Lochlan also hooked a small strap conger on a 7G LRF rod which took a size 12 baited with a tiny bit of ragworm! Unfortunately it snapped the hook length at the surface but not before a few of us shouted out in disbelief at the fact he’d managed to hook it on that setup.

And that’s basically the main highlights. A slow summer season all in all, with not as much time on the water as I’d have liked (the typical pattern of the last few years)

There’s still time for one or two more sessions before attention turns to the autumn and winter fishing. Both the fly gear and cod gear need a good dusting!

Having missed the last couple of trips to Scotland in search of Skate, I was determined to get back this year. We (Me, Steve and Martyn) decided to give it a go during the summer months this year, predominantly based on the supposition of better weather, traded off with the virtual guarantee of a greater presence of all manner of biting insects. The second reason though was to test whether or not our usual marks, which aren’t particularly deep and therefore 99% of the time will yield far better results during darkness, would still produce skate at this time of year given the longer periods of daylight. 

To cut that story short, our theory that it would be much slower on the Skate front at this time of year turned out to be fairly accurate on this occasion. Four and a half days and only a single skate run during the wee hours of the final night, which resulted in a dropped bait, adds some weight to the idea that this perhaps isn’t the best time of year to go after them on our usual marks, and while there are Skate in the wider area pretty much year round, the presumption is they’re spending a greater time in deeper water during the summer months – at least on our usual patch. Local boat reports would seem to corroborate this.

It’s worth pointing out that our ambitions regarding the weather may have been somewhat naive as well – this is Scotland after all, where the most reliable view of the forecast is obtained by looking up at what’s above you. Despite the nationwide droughts featuring in the doomsday press in recent weeks, Day 3 was (predictably) more or less a complete write off with 50mph winds and driving rain for pretty much 24 hours. The rest of the week the wind wasn’t exactly helpful either, although perhaps not as bad – but in hindsight it was somewhat a blessing in disguise as it kept the bugs at bay, we didn’t really have any issues with them all week. 

What was salvaged?

It’s supposed to be a fishing report after all.  All in all there’s not an awful lot to write home about fishing wise, but between weather and twilight we did manage to salvage a few species points in the shape of wrasse, pollock, poor cod and Thornback rays. I even managed a few Ballan Wrasse on soft plastics intended for Pollock which is a first for me.

The highlight of the trip was my long awaited return to Loch Etive, and although I’ve camped a few times recently, I haven’t properly fished the loch in near a decade. We were forced in a way to go here during the awful weather on day 3, as a small bank on the south shore almost directly under the connel bridge was one of  the few sheltered spots we could find between Oban and Fort William! 

Steve was bitten off by a suspected Spurdog within minutes of putting a bait in the water, and although the evening didn’t yield any catches – I had to have another go the following morning to see if I could winkle out my first Spurdog in at least 10 years. Steve had gone home the evening before and Martyn was still chucking Z’s in the van, so I threw some gear into my box and trudged down to the same spot for an hour over slack water when the current would be fishable. 

Frustratingly I got bitten off on my first chuck and then proceeded to miss 2 more fish afterwards before the tide got too fierce, so determined to settle the score I later moved round to the north shore with Martyn to a mark that I knew from experience can produce fish on the ebb. This proved a good move as we each landed a couple of spurs, with the biggest going to Martyn at around 5-6lb. As I’ve found in the past, the determining factor on this occasion may have been adding squid to the equation bait wise – there have been times when I’ve fished here and can’t buy a bite on mackerel alone, then as soon as you cocktail it with squid the fish are all over it. Coincidence perhaps, but this has happened on too many occasions on etive for me in the past to ignore so it’s always worth having squid in your bait bag when fishing here. 

I also managed a solitary dogfish before the tide again made things somewhat un-fishable, and the final (failed) opportunity to tangle with a skate that evening compelled us to move on to other areas.

So all in all not the best trip fishing wise but still a good trip all the same. I certainly won’t bother going back for the skate in summer! 

I wasn’t even planning to go fishing today. 
Lochlan is off school for half term and I’m off work so we spent the morning down at Seaburn pottering about in the rock pools, finding crabs and quite a few really big butterfish. 

He then started telling me he was going to try and catch a Bass (out of a rock pool mind you). I asked if he fancied going out fishing for a couple of hours in the afternoon for Bass and he was keen as mustard, so after an ice cream at Minchella’s, a jaunt back home to pick the gear up and a dash to the shop for his mandatory tube of Pringles we were on the mark early afternoon. 

With a lazy swell running and murky water I wasn’t all that optimistic we were going to catch much so instead I spent a bit of time working with him on his casting. Pleased to say he’s finally at the point where he can cast himself, and while it only tends to go 10 yards his form isn’t too bad – he’ll be a grand little caster one day. 

So for a few hours, in between Pringles, we took turns casting out all manner of soft and hard plastics with no interest. He got really excited when we spotted a small pod of dolphins just offshore. They were chasing something but unsure what it was. 

Come tea time we were about to call it a day when I clipped on a white feed shallow for a few last chucks. 2nd cast and it got slammed in 2 foot of water and we were finally into a Bass! 

Lochlan was absolutely dancing all over the place, ecstatic to finally see/hold his first Bass. He’s seen all my photos of Bass I’ve caught before and has been going on about wanting to catch one for ages. Genuinely the most buzzing I’ve seen him. 

So I reckon that’s him coming lure fishing a lot this summer 😂

We stayed for another 20 mins to see if there was any more but with time getting on we reluctantly called it an evening. Looking forward to taking him out again.

Theres a recurring pattern of hiatus’s on this blog which I really need to get a grip of. I don’t get out fishing nearly as much as I’d like to these days, twice in the last 4 months is dismal even by my usual standards. Not for a lack of motivation, I just haven’t had the time, though I have rather ambitiously decided that my resolution for 2025 is to get out more so you never know!

At the time of writing it’s the first week of 2025. The winter Cod fishing season started several months ago and although local reports have been somewhat mixed, it offers little consolation to me as I STILL hadn’t actually ventured out to the rock edges for the first session of the season yet. Every time the conditions were favourable I always had something else to do. This last weekend however I decided it was finally time to do something about it.

Steve was up visiting family so we met down at the mark and were quickly set up and sending baits out into the blackness over high tide. Temperatures had dropped numbingly low post new year and the forecast was for thick snow from midnight, so the plan was to grab a few hours of the ebb before Steve had to make the 3-4 hour drive home to Matlock.

Baits were a combination of cart, mackerel, squid and blacks, with Steve adding some variety in the shape of hermit crab. The first hour past with little excitement, but in my experience a couple of hours into the ebb has always been the sweet spot for the mark and, encouragingly predictable, Steve was into the first fish, a lovely 4lb12oz codling which judging by the size of its gut had been filling up well during the extended onshore.

Steve had one more cast before he decided to call it an evening, prior to which I managed to winkle out a fish for him to witness as proof I didn’t blank – albeit at only 42cm it wasn’t much of a consolation prize! I managed another out of a similar stamp before the cold and solitude won out and I decided to leave shortly after.

So a brief but moderately successful few hours out. Now I must set about publishing the backlog of reports from the last 6 months or so (it’s not that impressive…)

April is not a good month for sea fishing on much of the east coast, so presented with a rare opportunity for a days fishing I decided on a day at my local Trout fishery – Sharpley Springs.

The fishery is a mix of 5 fly fishing only lakes, the largest being ‘The Doxford’ and the more modest of them being ‘The Noose’, along with a small children’s worm lake and a small training lake; a nice touch for those who are new to fly fishing and able to reap the benefit of some practical 1:1 coaching. It’s a great setup, and the relaxed, friendly atmosphere is why Sharpley boasts a strong group of regular visitors. Once you’ve paid for your ticket at the golf lodge down the road, you make your way to the actual fishery and sign in at the cabin, where you can get free tea/coffee throughout your session.

Although at one point fly fishing was a regular pass time for me, it’s 2-3 years since I last had the fly gear out so I was feeling a little rusty. Given the early season chill brought on by a gentle but steady northerly breeze though, I suspected I’d have to keep things nice and slow to get the fish to respond well. Suits me, as I much prefer the natural style of fly fishing that comes with fishing buzzers.

The great thing about buzzer fishing is the variance involved presents the angler with a constant challenge in terms of ‘matching the hatch’ so to speak. When we talk about buzzers, we’re talking about representing the various development stages of the larvae of the non-biting, chironomid midge species. These start their life out in the silt at the bottom of the lake/river bed as ‘bloodworm’ before developing into the ascending midge pupae, which rises tantalisingly slowly through the water column towards the surface, making itself generally irresistible to hungry trout. If it survives long enough to reach the surface, it now has to run the gauntlet of breaking through the surface tension, hatch into the winged adult and fly away before it gets snaffled.

All of these stages are imitated by different fly patterns, and the fish can be particularly selective in terms of what size, colour and depth they want the flies fished at before they’ll take. There are days when finding the right match can be maddening, so generally when starting a session I’ll start with a team of flies – at least 2, ideally 3. Unless it’s really cold, I’ll usually go for a couple of varnished buzzers alongside a lighter pattern such as a diawl bach fishing the top dropper. If the fish are higher in the water the 2nd dropper and even the point fly might get replaced by similar lighter patterns to really slow down their descent, or if the fish are in the top few feet then I might put something lumpy and buoyant on the point and fish 2 buzzers on droppers as a washing line. Of course if the fish are preoccupied with emerging adult midge then the dry fly fishing can be outstanding

My favourite way to fish a team of buzzers if there’s a light crosswind is straight line drifting, where you literally cast out at 90 degrees to the wind direction, straighten up and then allow the flies to swing round in the wind drift. You don’t need to ‘retrieve’ the flies – just apply an extremely slow figure 8 , enough to keep up with the flies rather than impart any actually movement as they swing round. Takes can be heart stopping and it makes for some really exciting fishing, especially early season.

Such was my approach today – i started the session with the 2 patterns that spend the most time out of my box, a wicked white black buzzer on the point and a dark olive on a dropper spaced around 4 ft apart on a 12 ft leader. Both flies are in size 12 as it’s April and usually the time of year where hungry, over wintered fish are looking to capitalise on the larger buzzers that start to hatch off early spring.

Not much happened for the first hour or so, and the trickle of late morning sunshine did very little to threaten the chill of the prevailing northerly breeze. What it did do though was spark a mass uprising of caenis flies, aptly nicknamed ‘anglers curse’ due to their tiny size and extreme difficulty to imitate. Naturally this got the attention of the trout and suddenly there was a half decent rise on. Much to my frustration though, they weren’t interested in any dries I hastily offered; even the tiniest of grey shipman’s buzzers which I’ve found success with in the past when the caenis are out were being ignored. So there was only one thing for it – cup of tea!

When I returned to the main lake half an hour later, the fish seemed to have gone down again and upon inspecting the margins, confidence was renewed as I could see several large “shucks” drifting about indicating that the slight increase in temperature had also coaxed some buzzers into hatching. Since there was little indication that the fish were preoccupied with emerging adults though, I set up a new leader of 13ft, again with a black buzzer on the point and a dark olive buzzer on the dropper above it, but this time with an additional dropper at the top fished shallow. To this I attached a brown Diawl Bach with some bright biot cheeks to make it stand out. Although they weren’t taking off the top, I didn’t think the fish would be really deep given the amount of shucks I could see drifting by my feet; some of the biggest I’d seen on this water, so they had to have noticed! By having the lighter Diawl Bach at the top of the setup rather than a 3rd epoxy buzzer, i can fish the cast a little shallower as the nymph won’t pull everything down as quickly as a heavy buzzer would do. This enables me to test out varying depths the fish may be feeding at, which to me is the most effective way to fish buzzers and produce quicker takes than perhaps you would just fishing a single fly.

This turns out to be a good tactic, as within a couple of cast the first stocky fish slams into the point fly (a size 10 black, this time with silver cheeks) and is quickly netted.

And I quickly brush off the prospect of it being a fluke, hitting another fish straight after. And another. And another!

The morning has been slow all round with very few anglers connecting to much, so naturally I gather some interest as I start getting asked what I’m using. I’m not one of these super secretive types that guards their favourite fly patterns though and happily share what I’m doing and soon a few others are bending into fish more regularly.

The fish continue to respond well to the combo all afternoon, with no one fly really out performing the other – all 3 produce regularly and I quickly get into double figures, including some lovely conditioned over wintered fish. Surprisingly there are some lovely Brownies in amongst them as well, and I net 3 over the course of the afternoon which is the most brownies I’ve had in a single day session.

I’m on a kill ticket so using a spoon to inspect the contents of one of my bagged fish reveals what I already knew – that the fish were preoccupied with the large, darker coloured buzzers as they ascend ready to hatch.

I stick it out until 7pm before calling it a day, happy with a tally somewhere in the mid teens. It’s been a rare day out fishing and a nice change from the usual saltwater exploits. With thing warming up though, I’ll definitely be getting out on the Bass soon!

Ok so the title is a bit of a mis-sell; the fishing was more of an occasional feature on a weekend that was all about wild camping really.

When my mother turned 50 a few years ago, me, my sister and our significant others hatched a plan to take her to Iceland in what would be her first holiday abroad in nearly 2 decades. A 5 day agenda of Ice cave tours, mountains, black sand beaches, volcanos, lava fields, waterfalls, ziplines, geysers and seeing the northern lights twice can probably, in hindsight, be marked as the catalyst for her new found obsession with all things outdoorsy. If you’d have told me a few years back MY mother would join a weekly ramblers group or go wild camping I’d have laughed in your face. But that Iceland trip seemed to set off a rocket and her adventure bucket list appears to grow daily.

An established Ray Mears fan, one activity that has been high on said list is wild camping, so a plan was hatched late last year to chalk off her first wild camp with a trip to the Scottish highlands in the spring.

As it was her first rodeo, I plotted a route on the south shore – starting from the middle of the loch around Taynuilt and making use of the main Land Rover track pretty much all the way up the loch to Ardmaddy Bay. There’s little in the way of civilisation here save for one or two Croft farms and small holdings along the way.

The track meanwhile is easy to navigate and well maintained – if you’re into combining wild camping with biking you could certainly choose worse places.

With half our troupe less seasoned when it comes to distance walking with heavy gear, I’d assured everyone that I had chosen a route with no hills, which considering the Glencoe and Ben Starav backdrop, I figured was a perfectly reasonable statement to make. Apparently some of the steeper banks and “inclines” of the track did constitute something of a hilly nature however, judging by the low level cursing coming from my companions as we trudged along.

With a couple of stops thrown in for a coffee and a breather though we had ample opportunity for photos and a general take-in of the landscape.

If you were leaning towards a shorter distance walking wise you probably wouldn’t need to head all the way up to Ardmaddy to find a suitable pitch for wild camping, although given the track ends just before the bay it’s definitely where to go if you’re looking for more isolated territory.

I think in all with a couple of stops it took us around three and a half hours to reach the bay. Amongst the many gorse bushes that fringe the beach we found plenty of accumulated driftwood which had clearly been washed up at some point whenever the loch was last over-flooded. Clearly it had been some time since, as a lot of it was perfectly dry enough to feed the campfire without smoking the place out, supplemented with some dead standing birch logs and tinder me and Luke managed to forage from a nearby woodland to get things going.

A bit of fishing

Camp erected I did what any self respecting opportunist angler would do. Like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, I produced an old telescopic rod from my childhood that I’d stowed away in my pack, clipped on a small spoon and set about the local trout population with vigour. Surprisingly, my initial lack of confidence turned out to be ill judged – there was actually quite a few wild Brown/Sea Trout in the area, although i didn’t do the best job at keeping a lot of them on the hook long enough to beach them. Most of my lures I tend to switch to single hooks, and trout, with their aerial acrobatics, are especially adept at throwing these whether they’re barbed or not.

I did manage to land a couple though. None were really worth skewering for the campfire, but what they lacked in size they made up for in appearance with some of the most beautifully marked wild Trout I think I’ve seen.

After giving my mother a few casting lessons she had a dabble for a bit but wasn’t quite getting the distance required and soon lost interest when all she could catch was weed! Give her some credit though – over 50 and she’s hiked over 3 hours into a remote Scottish loch with a heavy pack for her first time, set up her own camp and helped forage and prep wood for the fire. I was quite impressed to still see her enjoying it despite being knackered!

A surprise camp-mate

The trip wasn’t really about fishing so very little time was dedicated to it anyway. We busied ourselves for the last few hours of daylight surveying the surroundings, with intermittent forays into the surrounding bush for more firewood. We’d noticed a little Ringed Plover sticking close by to camp which seemed reluctant to leave. On closer inspection it turned out she had a small clutch of eggs on the beach just above the high water mark 20 yards away from where we’d set up. So we made a point of giving her plenty of space so she could sit in peace.

Evening antics

Grey Dawn

I didn’t sleep particularly well. Testing out my new thermarest for the first time time told me one thing – that apparently I appreciate a wider mattress. My previous one from OEX was quite broad shouldered, with a good amount of room either side, whereas this one is clearly designed to be low profile and very much align with the general contours of someone who sleeps immobile on their back all night. There’s probably only a couple of inches overlap by the time I’m lying on it and unfortunately if either my elbows or legs trailed over the edge of the mattress during the night it was enough to trigger my brains “you’re falling!” response and would jolt me awake. Never-mind – I’ll just have to get used to it!

Opening the tent we were greeted to a moody but still Etive. Having been to the loch many times over the years, I never get tired of seeing it in such settled conditions. Looking across to Barrs and the surrounding area I could make out some of the new manmade features in the landscape since my last visit – namely the new access tracks and logging breakwater which I presume are part of the longer term plans to do with the Glenn Etive hydro scheme, although last I heard this initiative still hadn’t been fully given the green light so who knows.

It transpired the others hadn’t slept amazing either, a mix of first time camper nerves and Luke feeling claustrophobic in their 2 man tent, though this did little to dampen my mothers spirits as she emerged from her tent and deftly trudged to the shoreline in a full swim piece, announcing she was going for a dip. Credit to her – she followed through. I reckon they heard the exclamations of how cold the water was back at Taynuilt!

With everyone already knackered, none of us were particularly relishing the prospect of the 3 and a half hour tab back to the car or the subsequent 5 and a half hour drive home, but rather than make excuses we broke camp reasonably early in the morning following a hasty breakfast.

The hike back was pretty uneventful apart from coming across an abandoned lamb. We suspected a ewe who was nursing another lamb not to far away was probably the mother and had either rejected the twin or it couldn’t keep up with her, as it did unfortunately appear to be lame and seemed to be on its last legs. Reluctantly we left it at the side of the road covered In one of Luke’s t-shirts hopeful that the farmer may turn up soon.

And that was that. A bit of a baptism of fire for mum, sister and brother in law who’d never wild camped before – but despite the grumbling on the hike back I think they mostly enjoyed the experience. Mum still seems keen to go again at some point anyway so I haven’t totally sickened her off!