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The Linlithgow Angling Club manages the trout
and sea trout fishing on an extensive stretch of the little
River Avon in West Lothian. Club members have done a great deal
of work since the nineteen eighties to help the river recover
from the heavy industrial pollution of earlier years. This
lovely little river now boasts a healthy population of brown
trout and is seeing increasing runs of migratory fish,
particularly sea trout. The club, which has exclusive access to
ten miles of fishing on the lower middle river, welcomes
applications for membership, which is very reasonably priced at
only £26 per year (2008 figure). Having joined the club in 2007,
I soon made use of the excellent map provided by the club, in
conjunction with the local ordnance survey map, to explore the
fishing throughout the length of the beat. There is great
variety in the fishing, some pools being easily accessed from
riverside paths, while others present more of a challenge but
offer truly wild fishing on pools where the equally wild trout
rarely see an angler's fly. After some heavy rain during the first week in
August, I thought I'd spend an afternoon on the club water, the
afternoon of the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008.
The Chinese people thought it was a propitious day for the opening of
the Olympic Games. Perhaps it would prove fortuitous for me,
too. On arrival, I found the river running off after a very big
flood, but still very dirty. It was a fine day and, by the look
of it, the river was likely to continue falling throughout the
afternoon. Judging that the river was still a bit high and dirty
for the usual small trout flies, I decided to try a more
substantial offering, in the form of a simple one inch needle
tube fly with a black squirrel hair wing, in the hope of
attracting a sea trout. Such a fly had proved most effective
earlier in the year on the Spey, so I thought it might be just
the job for the Avon sea trout. It proved a good choice, as I finished the afternoon with
a lovely sea trout, a fish of
nearly two pounds in weight, my first from the river, and, as a bonus, half a dozen
lovely wild brownies, all of which were returned to fight
another day.
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