Goldenloch january 13, week 2 2014
Having been very involved with the Goldenloch since the very beginning its quite a story about how it and its surroundings were developed, my parents ( who are both deceased now, but fished from the 1930s till 2005) especially my father were great anglers who fished regularly for trout on Cameron Reservoir, many small rivers and also weekly at loch Leven, as well as for Salmon on the Tay, Tweed, Don, Dee and many other rivers, he and his buddies used to kill a lot of fish and that was something he was never happy or proud about, often coming home and telling my mum who herself was an accomplished angler and sportsperson whom he would share many hours going fishing with, but women weren’t really welcome then, in what was mostly a male dominated sport, especially women who were more conservation minded, both of my parents were great sportspeople with my mother being a world recognised curler and my father not far behind, but there main passion was fishing, I can just remember as a young boy being taken to a Sea Loch called Loch Maree on the west coast of Scotland, my father getting or borrowing a old war time willies jeep from John Curry at Reekies in Cupar ( this was pre Land Rover) there were no real roads up North at that time, and we set of on an adventure lasting weeks, these trips which was for brown trout, all fish being returned and was turned into a yearly holiday for them and lasted 20+ years, their names are still to be found in the old register books at the Loch Maree hotel, So what’s this got to do with the Goldenloch, well my fathers fishing buddies on the weekly boat at loch Leven was Mr Moncrieff (who owns the Loch) Collision Briggs, (my uncle) his son Robin is Briggs the marine salvage people, and guests, these three being the main men so to speak, it was the size of the catches and what was expected of them that was encouraging so many people to kill so many fish, my father often had arguments with Mr Montgomery and my uncle, that it would be equally as important to tell people just how many fish had been caught and not have to kill them all to prove to others that, that was the number, often there were many small fish but in those days they were just a number, photographs were never taken, my dad used to say that they were to embarrassed about their days work, (they did have morals but not on the pier) both my father and my uncle (who at that time had a big plumbing business in Kirkcaldy) were very innovative people and spent hours inventing and tying flies ( this was not done by many in those days as the fishing was done with flies supplied by, say the loch Leven fisheries in presentation boxes,[go on ebay] Shops did not have flies for sale as such, One or two did such as Dickson’s the gun shop in Edinburgh) my father used to tell me the story that they refused to sell him hooks, so he went to some factory in Poole I think he said and bought millions of hooks, which he started selling to other anglers, In those days most farmers had shoots and my family was no exception, with us all going to many neighbours and friends shoots, and them coming to ours their was always a vast amount of birds feathers available, so tying flies was just the ticket and my father being the man he was, experimented with a massive amount of energy into finding a good pattern, I also used to shoot a lot and it was on a shoot in the borders in 1979 when I was in my twenties I was asked by the head keeper at a shoot to kill as many as I could because their neighbours’ had shot more than them the week before, I turned to the beater beside me asked him if he had a gun he said no so I gave him mine a Damascus barrelled 12 bore and said “You do now” that was the last time I used a shotgun, I still have a few and I don’t know why, Why kill something for no reason it doesn’t add up. Like my father and mother, my family, we used to sit round a huge table often with friends and talk about hunting shooting fishing and many other sports that’s what we did and that’s what our life was like, but the one thing that we all had in common, was it was all for fun, and enjoyment, it was about doing something that made you feel good within yourself, the reason we resurrected the Goldenloch {originally called Berryhoile water} was and still is for pleasure, it’s a sporting fishing loch that’s available to all to come and enjoy, it was never easy sometimes its very hard, but it was meant to be challenging, whatever the situation or need is we are here it will change in the next few years as it has done in the past few, but that’s what we can do with it, its ours and my dad always said (if somebody’s no happy then its their own fault) More rantings next week
To Book for Fishing, Call John on 01337840355 or 07968006367. or email john@goldenloch.co.uk or visit www.goldenloch.co.uk or our fb goldenlochfishing