Baggie Boy

Mark Hi. See my reply 'Caledonian Canal, Loch Ness etc'- this forum - dated 13 August. May be of some help if you can get a bit of a way down the Great Glen,ie a few miles south of Inverness. Baggie Boy

Hi See my post today - 13 August - 'Fishing on the Caledonian Canal etc' which spells out how my son and I fared on the Caledonian Canal last week. Good luck. Baggie Boy

ps The midges can be an absolute pain from about 8 o'clock onwards in the evening. We were recommended Avon Skin-So Soft (SSS)which is a body spray and seems to do the trick. Chemists, or the the Fort william angling shop sells it, about a fiver...all the Forestry Commission blokes use it, so we were told! Baggie Boy

Hi Just back from our Caledonian Canal trip which was - thanks to the weather - an absolutely superb week. We set off from Caley Cruisers on Monday 4 August in temperatures more akin to the Sudan than Scotland! Moored at the Clansman on the first night...that's about 40 mins down Loch Ness (on the right) before you get to Drumnadrochit/Urquart. A small purpose built harbour, easy(ish) to negotiate and should be £5 a night, although no one asked us for any money the two nights we had there. We 'messed about' a bit with spinners/lures etc in the harbour, but quickly switched to float fishing with worms and began to land small brown trout fishing at a depth of (about) 4 feet. We fished here the next morning, and over the wall on what was a very smooth Loch Ness, and again had some small brown trout. We also fished in the harbour on our final night - again worms - and my son hit double figures, brown trout and eels. Thereafter it was pretty thin going...nothing around (or at)Fort Augustus, until we reached Loch Oich where my son caught an eel from the landing stage at the Well of the Seven Heads, and narrowly missed out on a small pike when using a spinner. The fish gave up the chase just as he was reeling in! Loch Oich has the best potential for pike, but the problem is getting access to the little bays at the top of the loch, just after you come in form the canal lock at Cullochy....it's not easy. By this time we'd caught up with a lot of cruiser anglers...some were fly fishing, some were lure fishing....and nobody was getting anything! Only success was one bloke who'd used 'steak fat' off the jetties at Urquhart and Foyers on Loch Ness, and had a couple of eels. Loch Lochy is a waste of time...beautiful scenery....but a vast expanse of water and you'd need a small boat to fish 'around the edges' if you were to stand any chance of getting any fish. But here comes the good bit. Just past Gairlochy lock, and about two miles from Fort William, there's a small jetty on the right, just big enough for one boat. It's on a bend, in the middle of nowhere, but the evening fishing for brown and rainbow trout was very good, with fish up to half a pound. Well worth a visit - we stayed two nights - and fished until 10 o'clock each night. You could also (possibly) have success with some flys and a surface float....my son tried this a bit...but quickly went back to worm/float. Our total for the week was 45 fish including 5 eels and (mostly) brown trout plus a few rainbows. My advice is "take plenty of worms" and stick to float fishing if you want any success at all. My son did a bit of ledgering, caught a couple of fish, but not as good as 'floating'. Quite clearly lure and fly fishing are out unless you've got the 'local knowledge' and/or can get to some of the more inaccessible spots. There's a fishing/gun shop in Fort William worth a visit - get the train in from Banavie station or by bus - where you can stock up with worms if you've run out. But I took a large supply from my home compost 'worm bin' and they served us well. You need to set your float(s) 'sensitively' so as to detect bites quickly. Trout, even the 'little uns' will have the worm/hook down their throats in no time.....unhooking was (at times) a problem. We used size 14/16/18...barbless. All in all a great trip...and I'm glad we took the worms, because without them we'd have had a very thin time. Fishing permit from Caley is £20 per boat, although not sure you really need it if (only) fishing in the canal sections, as coarse fishing in Scotland appears to be free! Good luck, if you've any point of detail, let me know...and how you get on. Baggie Boy

Hi Can't help now...but may be able to in mid August when we return from ourweek on the Caledonian Canal (Caley Cruisers). We had a three night - long weekend - with CC last August. Clogged it a bit and got as far as the Water Park (Loch Oich)before turning back to Inverness. It was that trip which was (mostly) responsible for getting our son interested in fishing; now he talks about and does nothing else...and he's quite good at it!This has helped revive my long lost (teenage) interest, so I'm doing some fishing again now for the first time in nearly 40 years! This year we will go at a more leisurely pace. We're taking a couple of spinning rods, plus a selection of spinners, plugs, lures. We think (!) we know some possible 'pike places', but no doubt it will be a bit of a lottery...but that's half the fun. Will also take a match rod or two, and do a bit of float fishing, probably with luncheon meat/sweetcorn. Cruiser 'fridges have to be turned off overnight, and they're quite small, so not much chance of keeping your maggots chilled! Stay tuned for a report back. All the best. Baggie Boy