Rivers, Loughs, and the Super Secret, Super Deadly, trout fly reveal. 

I think it very much depends on what you like. I've never fished in Ayrshire but I know there are some rivers down there worth a cast. My only experience of them is driving over them heading up from the ferry :-) I guess the other option is the Galloway lochs though, again, I only know of them by reputation. In the end you can't beat the Hebrides, it's just a matter of going fishing with none of the messing about.

I think the club do the best they can in terms of stiles etc. and it takes a lot of work so I don't want to knock the work they put in. I fished it as a kid and didn't like it then but last year I went back a few days early in the season and I sort of thought I'd have a cast this year when there were fish in. However, the simple truth is I don't like it and I hung around for an hour and went home. There were a few places where I could access the water for a cast, but not many, and it was obvious that these must have been the only spots as they were well worn. Upstream there were cattle and bulls. It is also the case that I'm spoilt as most of my fishing is on Lewis and I have maybe 30 salmon and sea trout systems plus 1000+ lochs and that is more my sort of fishing. I have parked at the church down below Dunadry bridge and there is access down there, assuming there aren't cattle in the fields now. There are a few tiny areas down there where it feels like more reasonable fishing and if you haven't been down then I did this video last year that gives you some idea what the river looks like: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-N5nZobl8h6o.html

@@caorach3354 I’ll get a watch of that, I seen the access near the church on Google earth, I’m going to take a walk up maybe tomorrow and see what it’s like before I buy a day ticket. Great channel it has got me back fishing after around 10 years off

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. You can't beat a good banana :-)

Great going Billy, the way things have been this year any salmon seems to be a good thing as there don't seem to be many about. I'm not sliding down those banks into muddy water of unknown depth no matter what, not for me at all :-)

Glad you enjoyed it John, the river didn't go so well but being from Lewis you'd understand why I couldn't be bothered with that. I'm still coming to terms with the super secret fly, not sure the fish could cope with another killer pattern :-)

I can't be having it Fred. This river does produce big trout, and they are real wild fish, but I'm pretty certain that if it were my only fishing option I'd simply stop fishing. It is odd how I simply don't get on with it but I've given it a try this last two seasons just to confirm that I wasn't imagining it. I did fish here when I was a kid but even then I didn't go very often and don't remember it being fun. That Lough doesn't get a lot of fishing pressure, in as far as I could tell I've been the only person to walk that bit of bank since at least the middle of July, it is pretty easy to tell with the molinia at the minute. People fish it up at the car park end but mostly no one is interested in fishing for small fish as for many people it is about catching fish rather than a day out.

Sorry to hear about the conditions Rick, that is part of the challenge of fishing but it can be frustrating to say the least. Hopefully it won't be long until you get out.

I'm not going to spend any part of my life hanging about somewhere that is clearly awful, regardless if whether I've paid for it or not. In part the visit was an experiment as I never liked it but it seemed reasonable to give it another try. That didn't work out, in the real world sometimes stuff doesn't

Glad you enjoyed it Paul, I'm not very good with the play list thing, or indeed any of the features and really the NI fishing is just an accidental aside as almost all my "real" fishing is done on Lewis with NI just offering the occasional day out. I must look at doing a playlist. In saying that I know nothing about the "features" on RU-vid this video has subtitles in various languages as an experiment :-) My intention was to do Scottish Gaelic for a laugh but I just stuck in a lot of random languages and let RU-vid do the auto-translate thing. I've been using DaVinci Resolve as my video editor for quite some time so the latest update for it will automatically generate English subtitles and, to be honest, the auto generated stuff was pretty good and didn't require much fine tuning keeping in mind all my mumbling.

I enjoy the wilder fishing and in the end it is about a day out rather than actually catching fish. I am keen to highlight that the fishing on the Six Mile Water is great and they get trout up to 20lb but it just happens not to be for me personally and I'd much rather a few small fish out of a nice lough :-)

What I don't reveal in the video is that I walked upstream, found a bull in the field, and came back down :-) Some people aren't much bothered by them but I've had a few close shaves and also know some dead people who would still be alive if they hadn't bumped into some cows and bulls. Also I like nice, cheerful, rivers but to me there is something sad and miserable about this one so it isn't for me.

You could well be right, I had decent enough water and in the end they are just sea trout so I just fished for them the way I would sea trout in the Hebrides. I'm sure there are fish in the river by now but it really isn't for me :-) However it is good to go along now and again just out of interest.

@@caorach3354 the 6 mile holds the British record for a wild Brown Trout 23lb! The river is stuffed with Dollaghan! 🎣

@@WeeManSham Aye, I know, I sometimes live beside it but no matter how many records it holds for some strange reason I really dislike fishing it. It is a bit early yet I guess but there's probably plenty of the smaller fish in, I've got to say that despite disturbing a few pools and so on I didn't see anything but I'm sure they are there.

@@caorach3354 have a go at night, you can’t go wrong! 🎣

@@WeeManSham The problem for me isn't catching the fish, it is the fact that I simply don't enjoy it for some reason. It just doesn't suit me, this is more my thing: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bhzhVV8Byuc.html

As you will understand they probably perform best in a decent wave, a flat calm day may not be ideal for them. I've only been fishing them for a short time but they've done the business for me even in relatively small waves - often I'd add an intermediate tip in a small wave so the flies aren't madly skating across a relatively calm loch and that has even worked with the rather bulky super secret fly. Good luck with the flies and I hope you enjoy Uist and get some good fishing, I hope you got John to send you a few of his other super secret patterns as well :-)

@caorach3354 yes Philip, I got John to tie me a selection (including the Barvas Crippler) when I was on Lewis a few weeks ago. With this batch I also got a few Connemara Black's.

@@marknoble9993 Both the Barvas Crippler and those Connemara Blacks that John ties have done really well for me for trout. I sort of considered the Barvas Cripplers to be a salmon fly and thought they might be a bit over dressed for trout but once I started using them I found that they took a lot of trout and, again, even in relatively calm conditions when I'd have been thinking of putting on a size 14 black pennell or something. I used a standard Connemara Black for a long time as a point fly but didn't have huge confidence in them but John's versions seem to have a bit more to them that just picks me up trout. I haven't managed a salmon on the Barvas Crippler yet but I did foul hook a fish on one so clearly it had thumped the fly but that one doesn't count :-)

The lough is relatively easy fishing compared to the river :-) Also even in a cool northerly wind I managed a few wee fish so really it worked out about the way I figured it would.

I pretty much always use an 11 foot 7 weight rod but this one is one of those multi-section Shakespeare travel type rods and so is actually 10 foot. I also have some of the Leeda Volare IV rods and an even older Leeda Dragonfly(??) that is just a fantastic all round rod. Under some circumstances, if there's no wind, I have two of the 11 foot 4 weight Leeda Volare IV rods as well but they don't come out often. Of late I've been using the Rio Versitip line as I really like the ability to change the sink rate of the tips and the versatility allows me to use one rod/reel/line combination for all my fishing. However, I've found that not only are the Rio lines extremely expensive but they wear out really quickly and so are not at all good value. I guess I do a lot of cast/retrieve type fishing and so my lines might get more casting than with other types of fishing but even so I've had other lines (Cortland 444 SL was one I used a lot) that just seemed to go on for ever when the Rio will be cracked and dead in maybe 4 - 5 weeks of fishing.