Confessions of a springer addict

Confessions of a springer addict

Words and pictures: Colin Macleod

Chapter one: It’s snow good…

It’s early October as I write this. I’m hiding in the Collingwood Arms – a famous fishing pub on the banks of the Tweed – nursing a large glass of Coca-Cola and hijacking the internet because the caravan I’m staying in doesn’t have any signal. I should be gillieing, but the river is up six feet and the colour of cheap hot chocolate, a hangover from Amy, the first named storm of the season, which ripped through the west coast of the UK with phenomenal vigour and left most of the country’s rivers in some form of spate – and many gillies with an unexpected day off.

This big spate marks the beginning of the end of the season, a first taste of winter that will see many salmon in the river heading west to do the job they are here to do. Sure, there are a few weeks of fishing left, but we have effectively reached the end credits. However, in amongst all the falling leaves and coloured salmon, there will be a few silver fish pushing through the brown spate water, months ahead of schedule – spring salmon. It’s a little-known curio, and maybe an old wives’ tale, but many on the Tweed believe the first springers arrive in November before the old season ends. A few even claim to have caught them. I’ve never seen one, but the thought of them is enough and has always kicked off a countdown of sorts to my favourite part of the year – spring season.

We all have our vices in life. My personal vice is an obsession with catching these early-season springers – and by early, I mean really early: January through to March. It all started in my teenage years, flicking through this very magazine and poring over photos of gleaming fish laid out in the snow; fishers wrapped up, battling upstream gales, blizzards and frozen rod rings, hell-bent on finding one of these amazing creatures – salmon so angry they would jump out of the water and rip a Willie Gunn clean out of your hands if given half a chance. It’s a battle against nature, a true test of determination and ability, mental fortitude. Only the very best need apply… It’s all very romantic in the most robust way. Trouble is, when you step out to do battle with Mother Nature, you forget it’s not really a battle at all. In reality, you’re just going to get battered.

Here is one such cautionary tale – a lesson in the cruel realities of spring fishing, in the hope it may save someone from falling down the same hole I have fallen down so spectacularly.

Snowbound on the Dee: The realities of fishing in a blizzard

I woke up a little worse for wear – not unusual for a salmon fishing trip – and so I thought, in the moment, that my eyes weren’t really working properly and adjusting to the brightness outside. But it wasn’t me; it really was blurry outside from thick snowflakes falling steadily. The snow had come in quietly in the night, as it likes to do, and we measured it in feet, not centimetres, when we went outside. Well, we measured it in wellies that someone had kindly left outside the Airbnb for visitors to use, and it was about one and a half wellies deep at the back door.

I was excited – maybe this was the day I’d waited my entire fishing career for, the day I’d finally have a chance of catching a springer in the snow. We knew there was a chance of a fish, as the day before my buddy had managed to get one from the same beat, and with the snow came the cold, which would also slow down the eager fish and give us a minuscule chance. And now we had snow – it was all too perfect.

It was all too perfect until we got to the main road and realised the gritters hadn’t been out. We had only driven 100 feet before we saw our first car off the road, and then promptly became the second car after I and two others lost control of the steering at the first roundabout. Luckily, as we were only driving at about 5mph, it was the most beige car crash in history. Once we had slowly bumped into the verge and managed to wheelspin back into a forward position, we were all back on track.

We made it to the beat – a five-minute journey which took 25 – and were greeted by the gillie, who had the fire roaring and a big pot of thick Scotch broth bubbling on the stove. He knew before we did that they had shut the roads behind us and that we would be in need of good sustenance to last the day (and possibly the night). You really can’t beat a Scottish gillie.

We tackled up with coffee laced with a shot of whisky and put on all the clothes we had. I just about managed to fit my waders over the three pairs of joggers I’d put on, all the while wondering why neoprene waders ever went out of fashion. (As a side note, I recently bought myself a pair after many years without – after a very cold February day last season – and I’d urge any serious early fisher to do the same. There’s no amount of layering that’ll compete with five millimetres of neoprene.)

Anyway, we were ready to tackle the first hurdle of the day – leaving the hut.

The gillie had informed us that the best chance of a fish was a spot at the bottom of the beat, and it was our turn to fish it, so we jumped in the van with rods and cameras in hand, high as kites at the prospect – and promptly got stuck in the snow. So prompt, in fact, that we didn’t even manage to get out of the car park. The van was going nowhere.

No matter – the other rods had a 4×4, and they gleefully set off down the river to fish the spot. With hindsight – and I’ve thought often about it – we should have just walked down to the pool, and I really don’t know why we didn’t. In the moment it seemed an impossible task, and the only logical thing was to give it away. Perhaps we were slightly coerced, and I’m a nice guy, so I let it go. Hindsight, of course, is a wonderfully useless thing and is born from frustration at the result of the choices you’ve made, so I’m sure you’re by now aware of what happened.

Yep – it was a short 15 minutes later when the call came in: a sea-liced 15lb springer, my dream fish, in the hands of someone else. I was livid – bitter beyond belief. I bitterly ‘sucked it up’ and tried for positivity rather than rage. Come on, Colin, it’s only 10.30am and already a fish has been caught; there’s every chance there will be another.

By 11am I was giving up the will. Now, here lies the reality of fishing in the snow – it sucks. The water that’s already winter-cold feels even colder. The wind will invariably be blowing upstream, given the geography of good Scottish spring rivers, and will blow the snow into your face, which then melts and runs cold down your neck. You have to get out of the water every 15 minutes because, even though you have the most expensive socks known to mankind, your feet are freezing. Plus, when you get back in the water, you have to get straight out again to pee, because the cold makes you want to do that too.

Heavy lines and big flies, deep wading in snowy sludge and rod rings freezing – but it’ll all be worth it when that line goes tight. Yep, it’s all about the tug. Any moment now. Please let it be any moment now…

We fished for what seemed like an eternity, going down the pool in shifts and thawing out in the hut in between. A quick glance at the watch showed it was only two o’clock; I was sure it was four. Then the snow turned to sleet, and as the light started to fade it got harder and harder to leave the hut.

The gillie, having seen this routine many times, pulled out a bottle of whisky at 3pm and said something about optimal taking times. That was all the incentive we needed. We commiserated and congratulated. As often with salmon fishing, some were ecstatic and some were crestfallen, but all were happy not to be at work.

We watched the winter evening turn frosty from the warm glow of the stove, and after the whisky was gone, we accepted a generous lift home from the gillie and abandoned the dream of a fish in the snow – and the useless van in the car park – for the night.

By the next day, the snow was gone and the river was bursting its banks, the dream gone for another year. You would think a painful lesson had been learned about expectation versus reality, but this is the thing – I didn’t learn anything. As we drove away that night, I was already planning the next adventure with my pals, just as I’m sat here (now with a pint of stout – it’s been a few hours) in this pub thinking about the next season before this one’s even done.

It is a strange way to have fun…