Loch Dionard – A Special Place

If I was given the opportunity to spend my last twenty minutes on this earth in any place I desired it would be here, no hesitation, no doubt, it would be here. At the start of a drift just off the tiny islet and onto the rocky shore where salmon lie a mere rods length from the jagged loch side stones. 

I struggle to express what this place means, memorable things happened here but that’s not what elevates Dionard above all those other wild lochs I hold dear. Above Stack, More and the hill lochs of Sutherland, above the machair lochs of South Uist or the mighty Corrib. It’s the wild spirit of the place, its remoteness, its drama.

A drama that started with its geological creation forged out of a micro version of plate tectonics which delivered us the fantastically titled Moine Thrust Belt. The Belt juts inland from the Kyle of Durness through the Dionard Valley into the heart of the Sutherland where it created the majestic twin ridges of Arkle and Foinavon.

As a teenager I would fish the loch twice during the annual two week family  pilgrimage to the Scourie Hotel.  The adventure, because that was what it was seen as, would start around lunchtime as you dropped down from road beyond Gualin House to the riverside track.  In later years this would be churned up by an Argo Cat and then replaced by a proper gravelled roadway – but in those days the only way to get to the loch was a six mile hike up the Strath. 

In spate the fishing on the river could be astonishing and one drenched July morning all six rods we came across were playing a salmon as we walked past.

Halfway up the valley you came to Heather Point a gorgeous dream of the perfect spate river salmon pool, with its  peat stained inky black swirling glide.  Not only the best salmon pool on the river but also as it turned out an excellent wild swimming spot for a Flat Coat Retriever.  Unfortunately Penny was ours and she raced on ahead launching herself stag like off a promontory before belly flopping  on to what I suspect was the nose of some bewildered grilse.

Profuse grovelling apologies from our side, full understanding from the dazed angler at the head of the pool because miraculously he too had a Flat Coat Retriever sitting by the river and knew what we were dealing with, a lovely animal but not the sharpest hook in the fly box.  

When it was dry the walk was a picturesque pleasure but in the middle of a spate the approach to the loch meant flailing through bogs and fording swollen streams.  Dougalls Burn being the worst culprit as it cascaded over Foinavon’s  exposed lower flank. In the mid distance high above the valley floor Dougalls flowed over a gently sloping exposed slab that turned the water white before splitting the flow into rivulets dividing and reforming around the slab’s protrusions, a quartzite five of diamonds suspended mid-stream.

Once at the loch you’d settle into the very basic bothy which would be your home for the next 24 hours.  Typically, the accepted routine was to fish into darkness, before a short and uncomfortable night’s sleep in rustic bunks, then a very early rise for us peasants to poach the top end of the river before the gentry had enjoyed their breakfasts and assembled their rods. Then back to the loch until lunchtime followed by the walk or better described as the trudge back towards Gualin.

And so to the loch. From the bothy you’d row into a narrow neck which was the entrance to the main loch, in high water you could see the current raging through the gap.  On the righthand side was a single boulder projecting out of the water and if the flow was strong enough it would create a tiny slack as if in a river , here you might find a salmon lying nestled behind this lonely rock.

A hundred yards on there was an islet to the right of which was the rocky shore onto which was my ideal farewell drift.  Just like South Uist’s Roag the fish would lie behind and between the rocks and boulders just offshore often launching and crashing back into the waves no more than a short cast from the water’s edge.

The top half of the loch was dominated by a brooding vertical rockface topped by a schism from which a stream leapt down to the loch side. If there had been rain there would be a myriad of whisps of tiny waterfalls all across its craggy face.

This great slab of rock deflected capricious gusts of wind often making true drifts impossible and dapping a nonsense with the fly sometimes thrown vertically above a fisherman’s head.

I’ve seen waterspouts on Loch Stack but Dionard is the only place I’ve witnessed a vast curtain of water picked up and furiously slammed down the length of the loch. This was July, and thank God I was on the shore, what is this place like during December’s Winter storms?

The far side of the loch was much gentler with a little peninsula frequented by salmon then onto a bed of lily pads in open water around which sea trout would lie. One of the many beauties of the loch was you seamlessly moved from a slow retrieve for a salmon straight onto the quicker movement of your flies over known sea trout drifts.

Getting the conditions right was pretty rare but when you did this was the best loch I have ever fished. It held lots of salmon in lots of places and when you weren’t on a salmon lie you were pretty much guaranteed to be covering sea trout. We’re not talking about finnock, lots of two to three pound sea trout with a fair few bigger ones around.

I caught two of my most memorable fish here both salmon and caught in my teens. The first was on July 10^th 1978 when I was 18.  I should first explain I know the exact date because I still have the entry in my fishing diary and it was just the small matter of being my first salmon.  I’d had a fairly traumatic relationship with salar up to this point.  In my previous teenage years I had missed what seemed endless opportunities as salmon rolled at my flies only for me to snatch them out of their jaws.  In those days I was an over enthusiastic striker and I never had quite been able to adjust to the slower pace of a salmon take.

This time it was different probably because I never saw the fish!  Having had never ending failures in perfect conditions I somehow managed to tempt a salmon to a dry Irish Alder fished in pretty much a flat calm at 10:30 at night.  My task was made easier because the fish sipped the fly off the surface so I had no idea what I had on, in fact it took me a further 10 minutes to realise that I had finally hooked a salmon.  According to my diary after a protracted period of incompetence I finally drew my elusive fish over the net with it weighing in at 6lb 3ozs.

Looking back at my diary makes me realise what a special day it really was as in the late afternoon I’d caught a 3lb 6oz sea trout also on a dry Alder.   Perhaps what is most telling is that I have no memory of this fish at all, it wasn’t anything exceptional.  Now I travel any distance and pay a stupid amount of money to just to occasionally cast for the prospect of a  sea trout such as this. 

The second memorable fish I think was probably caught in the following Summer.  I was wild camping with two school friends and through Ian Hay at the hotel was able to get access to all the hotel’s fishing for free.  I even managed to get on the Dionard.

This was the trip with the curtain of water slamming down the loch and discretion being the better part of valour we had beached the boat and given the perfect salmon wave I was continuing to battle the gale from the shore.  The chances were good and just off the first headland I hooked a salmon.  

My mate was in his hiking boots and for some reason I felt the need to urge him into the loch  to net my prize. The ragged waves crashed over his knees and up to his waist but he returned dripping but triumphant.

Dave emigrated to Tasmania and then onto Flinders Island in the middle of the Bass Strait.  He’s lived on the edge of wildernesses for most of his life but whenever we meet he still recalls that wild couple of days and me ordering him into that loch.

On the way back down the valley we came to Heather Point and there was the Dionard’s owner Mrs Ferguson fishing the pool with her ghillie Bobby.  Mrs Ferguson had a bit of a reputation as a lady with should I say, “a strong character.” On this day she was a delight and to think she let three teenagers fish her loch, probably the best sea trout, salmon loch in Scotland and all for a fiver pressed into Bobby’s meaty fist.

It’s too long since I fished Dionard, the decline of west coast sea trout and salmon drove me westwards to fish the islands and when I do return to the mainland north sadly I don’t even think of casting a line for a salmon or sea trout.

Earlier this year on a fishless Spring Sunday I felt the urge to make my way back up the valley to my special loch.  So on a whim I set off up Strath Dionard with only Lexi loping by my side for company.    

I wasn’t disappointed, the river looked as magnificent as ever with its swirling eddies, littered boulders breaking the flow to provide endless potential salmon lies. It’s truly a river you could sit by and watch for ever.

As I gazed out at the loch down the salmon shore and over the rocky islet I remembered how to virtually all that fished it this was our favourite, our special place.