KINNABER 2021 BULLETIN.
Dear All,
It’s been a difficult season again what with Covid and all. But some progress has beaten the trend, notably we were able to complete fencing from the road access to road bridge, and outflanking points, as begun in 2019 but stalled in 2020 by Covid restrictions. That has been a physical success in 2021. The Kids couldn’t get in !
To meet the statutory guidelines of the “right to responsible access” — accent here on responsible — the only entrance from the public road into the property will be kept open to general public except when the fishery is subject to irresponsible abuse when the single entry will be secured for the duration of the abuse. The abuse in question is kids swarming out from Montrose on their bikes in hot weather to swim in the river at Kinnaber in preference to trying to enjoy the colder water off North Sea beaches.
The fencing was expensive and an unexpected expense, so when Mary asked me to spend some more money on the Lodge I rather rebelled. She felt it was beginning to look “tired”. I protested how it is a fishing lodge and not family holiday let accommodation such as she is an expert on running. So do write in and tell me I am right and dear Mary wrong. If your verdict goes against me I will agree to a lick of paint. I wd prefer to plaster the wall with fishing fly designs, Eric MacVicar fishing poems, interesting press clippings, fun cartoons, fish trophy stuff and all the usual fishing hut entertainments. But you all may disagree. Mary rules.
Apart from which residential lodge-wise we have all those wonderful faux French tapestries in the Saloon and Red Room that I bought at Nice Airport, the parrot oil paintings in the Yellow Room, and a roomful of genuine Japanese woodblock prints in the Green Room. You don’t get better in a fishing lodge ?
I am very proud of the ‘lodge that Martin built’. I was directed to one riverside fishing lodge which I admired. I measured it all and told the architect to adapt to the Kinnaber rod limit and design better.
Ron tells me how in a rather dry season at times he was able to persuade some tenants new to the beat — on arriving they found themselves daunted by low river levels. He managed to get them hitching their flies with magical results. That is the Kinnaber recourse as a great low water fishing beat. These tenants are booking into 2022 as a result. Let’s hope they get those low water conditions.
The danger for them in anticipation of great low water hitching conditions will be brown water conditions from rainfall. In brown water conditions the fish are running to the hills, and that is through every beat. So how best to catch running fish ? That requires an ambush strategy. You need to linger, casting at a stop point where the fish pause, there you fish fast across the stream and strike on contact, typically at the head of a pool.