I had always wanted to try fly-fishing, and with a spare morning I persuaded the group to join me. The concierge at our hotel, the Craigendarroch in Ballater, arranged for a ghillie to collect us first thing after an early breakfast and we piled into the Land Rover complete with a picnic lunch. David, the ghillie, explained how all the rivers are divided into ‘beats’ with fishing rights and huts. We could see Balmoral Castle on the opposite bank as we headed along and passed several of the little Victorian suspension bridges (that looked strangely out of place) before crossing the beautiful Thomas Telford built Potarch Bridge and heading off through the pine forest to Carlogie Beat. Our ‘hut’ was anything but, and boasted everything we needed for a comfortable day. David’s assistant was already there, the coffee was brewing and the rods were all set up ready to go. We were given a quick demonstration on casting the lines and how to be safe; we were then kitted out in wellies and flotation jackets and off we went to begin our day.

Apparently as a horse-rider, I should’ve been good at communicating through the line! I’m not sure if this was the reason, but with help I managed not to get caught in any of the bushes or trees on my back-swing! David’s assistant, Iain, explained how the salmon had come in from the Atlantic and journeyed back up-river to spawn in short bursts of swimming and, unfortunately for the angler, need to feed very little. Habit causes them to ‘snap’ or ‘snatch’ anything that lands on the water and this is what we were trying to emulate with our flies.

Sufficient to say, we caught no fish although several were landed by the guy on the opposite bank. I did win the competition for landing my fly into a circle on the ground back at the hut and we had plenty of laughs over lunch and a few beers.

By Yvonne Shaw. Yvonne has been with PerryGolf for over 10 years and is a member of our admin team.