Fishing in South Uist: the Phenomenon of the Shells

On our latest trip fishing in South Uist we were lucky enough to evade Storm Floris, which had spent the previous week battering the Hebrides into near submission with its almost record breaking Summer gale-force winds. I had spent the days following Floris’s departure fretting about whether the machair lochs, which always churn up after a gale, would have settled and cleared in time for our arrival.

I needn’t have worried. As we baled the results of Floris’s deluge from our boat on Bornish, the loch’s waters were clear, which was more than could be said for the skies, obscured as they were in their blanket of cold dense fog.

It was a pretty grim day, only lightened by a stunning close up encounter with a Golden Eagle and the strange phenomenon of the shells.

I should explain. After a fruitless couple of hours spent flogging the loch in the murk, it was time for a coffee, and so we headed for the bank. As we ran the boat into the lee shore, the bow crunched against what turned out to be a carpet of tiny, empty snail shells. There were thousands upon thousands of them forming a two foot crusted rim around the bay in which we had landed.

Almost every book or article I’ve read on fishing in South Uist and the machair lochs in particular talk about the fish getting fat on their diet of snails, which presumably spend their days inhabiting the weed beds dotted all over these lochs. 

The force of Floris must have torn these snails free from their weedbed moorings and washed them en masse into our bay.

The comments have always sort of passed over my head, because I can’t see how I can imitate a snail with any fly pattern known to man. I’ve heard theories about Clan Chiefs and Black & Peacock Spiders being fished close to the weed beds, but I’ve never been convinced that either look much like snails. Beetles yes, but snails? I’m not so sure.

To make sure I’m not making an idiot of myself I checked with my new friend Chat GPT which sent me into a world of obscure American YouTube videos which, to my amazement, showed flytyers producing amazing creations that actually looked like snails. A lot of UV resin was involved, but they looked intriguing. No idea if they work, but trying to tie some looks like a Winter project!

I’m under no illusions that snails must form a significant portion of a machair trout’s diet, I’ve seen their Tasmanian cousins feeding on them in the shallows – big fish, shoulder to shoulder, snouts down in the silt, tails half lifted to the sky.

It would be great if any Hebridean anglers out there use any of these “realistic” patterns and could let me know if they work.

Fishing in South Uist – Useful Links :

To Book Fishing contact South Uist Estates or the South Uist Angling Club