Adam Hart reveals the origin of his family’s fishing motto
IT HAPPENED AT THE SOUTHERN end of Loch Stack on August 15, 1983.My father, aged 18, was casting for his first salmon from the bow of a boat that also contained my grandmother (engaged, rowing) and my aunt (bored, reading). My grandfather, dressed in tie and plus-fours, sat in another boat 50m away, gently dipping his oars into the inky blackness of the loch. He watched his son fish against the backdrop of Arkle, drinking in the Highland air.
But the tableau was shattered by a salmon walloping my dad’s Silver Stoat’s Tail. “Tally Ho!” my grandfather called, as he rowed over, shouting encouragement and steering well clear of the fish. My aunt even looked up from her book to see what the fuss was about.
She watched half-interested as my dad tussled with the salmon. My grandfather, thrilled at the prospect of landing his son’s first salmon, readied the landing net.
But with all eyes on the fish, no one noticed the boats silently drifting apart.
Until the salmon decided to swim between them, half-heartedly, just below the surface and almost within reach of my grandfather’s boat. Sensing danger, my dad just had time to cry “Don’t lunge!” across the water, but it was too late.
My grandfather swiped at the salmon with his net, missed and caught the dropper. With one flick of its tail the salmon was gone, bolting for the depths never to be seen again.
A terrible, protracted silence reigned over the southern end of Loch Stack as my dad reeled in his line. My grandfather couldn’t bear it. Without muttering a word, he rowed himself into the middle of the loch where he remained “for some time”. Family members say he never forgave himself.
The salmon was gone, but our family motto — “Don’t lunge!” — was born.
Twenty seven years later, when I started fishing with my dad, he was quick to burn the phrase into my brain. Our annual trip to Scotland usually consisted of me standing in a freezing river hunched over a landing net that “had to be ready in the water” while Dad played an enormous brown trout around the pool.
It must have worked because over the last 13 years I haven’t lost a single one of his fish at the net, including an eight-pounder I landed from the opposite bank of the river we were fishing. On every occasion the words “Don’t lunge!” have been bellowed irritatingly loudly.
But fun as it is netting large trout, I desperately wanted to be the one catching them. School and university sidelined me through teenagerhood, but after graduating last year I could finally travel to Scotland again.
For once, forecast rain had materialised. This was my first proper chance at catching a whopping brownie, I thought, as we set out across the sodden heather towards a river in full spate.
Dad deposited me at the first pool. It was
