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A Common Spotted Orchid In May 2003
Afloat On The Loch At Lower Duart (Pictures courtesy of Colin Munro)
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We come to the end of another season, a very wet one but also a
record breaking season, with the largest brown trout caught since the beginning of our
records and certainly in the memories of both myself and Ian Hay which go back over 50
years. This fish was 8lb 12oz and was caught by Jim Nolan, another large trout was caught
from one of the hill lochs by Colin Munro and weighed in at 7lb 1oz and many more large
trout between 2 and 5lb were caught. A total of 5,422 brown trout were caught by hotel
guests. A delightful season despite the weather. On the seatrout scene again a good season with a total of 452 seatrout/finnock caught and released (although 8 were kept due to a relaxation of the rules on Loch Stack to allow 2 seatrout per rod per week to be retained by the guest if required). Although a large number of seatrout in the 2lb range were booked, disappointingly not much over this weight was caught. This could of course be because hardly anyone dapps for seatrout these days, a method which accounted for most of the large seatrout of yesteryear. Salmon fishers had an excellent year with 38 salmon coming off Stack (the best year since at least 1988 and probably longer). The winner of the Ian Hay Challenge Cup for the heaviest brown trout caught by a hotel guest off the hotel waters was Jim Nolan, with a fish of 8lb 12oz and the winner of the Ghillies Trophy for the heaviest salmon caught off Loch Stack by a hotel guest was Michael Wycherley with a 12lb 8oz salmon. Well done to both of them, a bottle of malt will be sent out in due course and of course their names will be engraved on the cup and trophy for posterity. Judy and I would like to thank all our guests for their support during the year and wish you all a Very Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year. Patrick |
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