The Lower Duart – a Salmon Beat Beyond Compare

The Lower Duart was a gem and to my Dad an obsession.

I say “was” because, although it is still undeniably stunning and a hugely popular beat, in the past it was on an elevated pedestal of being one of the most wonderful, special and unique places to catch a Scottish salmon.

The Lower Duart suffered not one but two catastrophes spawned of the modern world. The first and fatal blow was the siting of one Scotland’s early salmon farms in its freshwater midst with its cages moored out in the sea loch. 

The second destroyed its aesthetics with the construction of a new bridge and road scything through the Duart’s heart destroying the Wall Pool, which as I will explain later was very special in my family’s fishing history, which simply made it very special, full stop.

For now let’s forget the destruction and write a eulogy to the Lower Duart and what it meant to my dad.

First a description. Starting from the sea loch Na Creige Ruaidhe a hundred yards of narrow rocky gorge with a spate stream tumbling and splashing at its floor. Up to a small dank, dark plunge pool  at the base of a twenty foot waterfall with its rocks covered in soaking moss. 

I’ve clambered down amongst these treacherous rocks to witness salar’s attempts to assail the ramparts of this fall with multiple leaps and slitherings to eventually, occasionally, struggle and writhe over the stony crest into the calmer water above. It was a true David Attenborough moment of awe at the struggles and triumphs of the natural world.

Upwards into the long lazily flowing Angle Pool with a phalanx of reeds skirting the far bank. Apparently in high water a long cast from the head of the pool could result in a take, but we never managed anything here.

Above the pool another hundred yards of stream before reaching the true Lower Duart loch.

A ragged oval of a loch with weeds and lily pads dotted around the lower half, in the clear water the occasional sea trout would oblige but nothing of any consequence. You fished the Duart for a hard earned salmon, the odd small sea trout was an entertaining diversion, nothing more.

The salmon would lie across the top bay just out from the stream inlet and then just off the broken rocky shore down the right hand side.  The heather clad bank was steep and unforgiving on your back cast as you worked your way down the loch.

After about a hundred yards the shore flattened and gave way to a small bay, off the top of which was a renowned lie. I was probably about fifteen, casting from my knees deep in heather and bracken at the top of this bay, I had just seen a salmon perform its slow gentle roll in front of me.

I should explain that at this point I was still a salmon virgin and was in the middle of a run of missed opportunities, I was a bit like Justin Rose missing his first twenty cuts on the European Tour, so much young promise but just couldn’t make it happen. 

Anyway, I saw the salmon roll, effortlessly put a fly over it, and immediately felt a take! I struck hard, at that point in my career I was a very enthusiastic striker, nowadays I just tighten, but back in the 1970s I really struck. I hooked the fish, it went sailing over my head into the heather beyond – not surprising given it was about five inches long.

The other memory of the lower loch was on a day when I wasn’t fishing it myself, but had clambered down from the hill lochs above into the Duart valley below.  The boat in those days was an ancient, heavy, leaking, wooden thing with oddly matched oars that made it a nightmare to handle. Legend had it that the only time you could take a salmon in the lower loch was when the howling gale was so strong that you could hardly hold the boat.

Today was such a day and amongst the white horses on the stormed tossed loch two elderly ladies were battling the boat against the elements. Just the two of them, a raging wind, flecked waves, and I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say a good bit of old fashioned British pluck. They didn’t catch anything, but they did survive to be seen sipping well earned whiskies in the bar later that night.

From the lower loch two hundred yards of stream, then into another long narrow mostly reed covered loch. Amongst the reeds there were isolated patches of open water where you could take plump three quarter pond brownies, then into a slightly larger oval of open water with a low wall bounding the right hand side looking up the loch – hence the Wall Pool – twenty yards in diameter at the most.

It was here that my dad found himself in July 1971. He was fishing with his trusty 9ft Lennox split cane trout rod, in the bottom of the boat lay his tiny round folding trout net he used to clip onto his waders whilst trout fishing the Wharfe at Bolton Abbey. He had never cast over a salmon, never mind caught one. I was eleven years old and ill in bed, and so missed the events of the day, but my brother Dave was with him to witness family history in the making. 

In this tiny oval of water, in which in all the years following we never heard of a salmon even being seen, my dad hooked one. Not only hooked one, but hooked the biggest fish ever taken out of the Duart system. Chaos ensued. I only have my dad’s reports to go off, but apparently the fight ebbed and flowed for forty five minutes with the Lennox bent double. Numerous attempts at getting the fish into the tiny net failed and I think stress levels were rising. Somehow they eventually managed to contort a fresh run twelve pound salmon into that inadequate net. 

On his triumphant return to the hotel my mum helpfully asked, in all seriousness, “Where did you buy that from?”

From the Wall Pool you would row up through a wall of reeds before emerging into the jewel at the heart of the Duart system – the Eye Pool. The pool itself was another circular patch of open water but bigger than the rest, perhaps a hundred yards across. If I want to be lyrical I would say that the reeds were the eyelashes surrounding the pool with a thirty yard run of lily pads forming a single eyebrow in the top right hand corner just running inside the reeds.

The salmon lie was precise and ran along the top half of the lily pads and then left along the reeds at the top of the eye for another twenty yards. If the wind was from the west as it usually was the narrow strip of water no more than ten feet wide next to the lilies and reeds was where the salmon lay.

If you’ve ever had a Border Collie you’ll know about obsessive behaviour, repeating the same thing over and over again.  My dad was that Border Collie, constantly repeating this drift.  We’d spend a whole day drifting, resting the drift, drifting……

The modus operandi would be to gently row to the top of the pool, often holding onto the reeds to delay the drift until the stars had aligned, the sun behind a cloud and a good breeze rippling the water. Let go of the reeds and slowly drift down the pool with gentle adjustments on the oars to keep in that golden corridor next to the lily pads and onto the reeds. Then back up to the top of the pool to try again.

As I’ve said this place was unique. In those days it was stunningly picture postcard beautiful and unspoilt. A blueish iris set amidst a circle of dense vivid green rushes. The breeze making it seem alive with its rippling water and pulsing reeds. To complete the picturesque caricature there was even an ancient stone bridge a few hundred yards upstream from the Eye Pool itself.

Then there was this tiny little drift. I was always taught you needed a big wave for a salmon but here you, or at least my dad, could catch them with just a gentle ripple on the water, in fact you never got a  big wave because the pool was so small. So when the salmon rolled it seemed as if there was time and space, it was all so gentle. All this was beyond me and I missed so many fish by being overexcited and striking too early. I have to confess I never caught a salmon from the Eye Pool.

My dad was different and pretty much every year he would be logging his catch in the hotel fishing book. In fact if you look at the picture you can see that a few days after the Wall Pool epic my dad was back catching two smaller fish from the Eye Pool.

My role was to be on the oars managing the drift, as soon as the fish took there was a desperate fit of rowing to get the fish away from the reeds so it could be played in open water. Even if I didn’t catch anything there I did get to net quite a few fish!

I have one other painful memory from all those days spent on the Eye Pool. We were rowing through the reeds with the rods laid backwards poking slightly over the stern when one of the flies caught in the reeds. I clambered over the back to unhook the fly, but only managed to impale myself on the size eight Teal Blue and Silver which was still snagged in the reeds. I can still feel the boat drifting backwards over my arm, plunging it deeper, my finger hooked to the reed under the water. The feeling of rising panic until my dad steadied the boat and I recovered my finger, complete with inserted hook and fly. 

The local doctor had seen it all before, and expertly stripped the dressing off the fly as a prelude to forcing the hook, barb and all, through and out of the other side of my finger.

Lower Duart is still one of Scourie Hotel’s most popular beats but I can’t bring myself to fish it, today I doubt if anybody even thinks of casting a fly for a salmon – the wild fish are decades gone.

So I’ll leave it untouched as a receptacle of memories of what it was before the modern world crashed in and changed it forever.

Then only last week, to twist the knife in the wound, I found my local restaurant proudly advertising Loch Duart salmon on its menu – if only they knew!