Generous local knowledge leads Andrew Flitcroft to a heart-stopping encounter in the Argyll hills
ROB AND I WERE IN Lochgilphead and feeling a little dejected. We hadn’t expected a drought in Argyll at the end of September. The River Orchy was so low that our host had done all he could to put us off fishing it, which was not ideal after months of planning and an eight-hour drive with a car full of kit ready for action. We needed a Plan B and hoped a visit to the nearest tackle-shop might provide one.
Richard —sitting somewhere among the tackle in the back of the vehicle —had visited the town before and kept telling us about the local butcher’s legendary meat pies. They might —literally —be food for thought, he said. We parked at the top of the high street and there followed a period of quiet indulgence accompanied by the rustle of pies and sausage rolls in greasy paper bags. With the sun streaming through the windscreen, we stared at the shopfront of Fyne Tackle, and when I’d licked the last crumbs from my lips, I stepped inside to see if the man behind the counter could help.
Archie MacGilp, the owner of this family-run business, looked me up and down as he advised another visiting gentleman who appeared to be in a similar predicament. Then I overheard the words “hill loch” and “wild trout”. It transpired that Lochgilphead & District Angling Club —of which Archie is president —offers day-tickets for just £10 on a few of the club’s 18 lochs in and above the Knapdale Forest, a few miles west of the town.
I chipped in, if only to save Archie repeating himself. He said, “Here, I’ll give you both maps.” He grabbed a pen and started scribbling directions and adding hotspots on Daill Loch, the water he thought offered the best chance of a bigger fish. Archie seemed a man of standing and solid advice. He’d fished these lochs with his father (Archie senior) and late uncle since he was five years old. I gathered that, if we were prepared to walk, we might indeed find bigger wild trout among run-of-the-mill wildies and the fish the club stocks for anglers to harvest.
I thought I’d misheard the words “wild five- and six-pounders” until my fellow customer’s voice rose with excitement. And with that, I left the shop with a plan for the next day, already picturing skittering sedges and a broad-shouldered monster gliding over the rim of my net. That evening, after a steak pie fit for Manu Tuilagi, we settled down to a few drams and a search through our fly-boxes.
Next morning, the steak pie was still uncomfortably lodged inside me as we drove along the Crinan Canal, heading west. The canal links Loch Gilp on Loch Fyne (and ultimately the Clyde estuary) to the Sound of Jura and the Inner Hebrides. This stunning 14-mile navigable r
