IT WAS my fishing mate Stephen who first mis-quoted the American ‘gonzo’ journalist Hunter S Thompson when he said: “When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro.” That said, being the half-owner of a short Highlands spate river – where the water is usually too high or too low – is enough to turn any keen fisherman into a Zen master at working out how to shock a non-taking fish, on a theoretically unfishable day, into having a go. Stephen’s ‘emergency’ fly box not only contains the most eccentric flies I’ve ever come across, but he delights in going ‘pro’ and taught me to do likewise. On the last day of one trip up north, with the river on its bones (“It’s the driest I’ve ever seen it,” he announced as we inspected the miserable flow), I surprised even him. As a third rod was joining us that final day and needed entertaining, I volunteered to fish the river upstream, from sea mouth to the top falls, while they fished it normally, downstream.
‘Normal’ meant not one touch
