Steve Woodhall,Borve Lodge Estate

manager, plays atrout on remote and

uninhabited Taransay.

/G The trout lochsof Taransay

Jon Beer explores an island paradisein the Outer Hebrides

P H O T O G R A P H Y : JON BEER

www.trout-and-salmon.co.uk November 2015 17

TROUT IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES

ABOVE Boarding the veteran Falklandslanding craft for the trip to Taransay.

RIGHT The first fish from the littlelochan below Beinn na h-Uidhe.

W- E WERE on holiday. It was a

family holiday. Not a fishingholiday. They'd been fairlyfirm on that matter. I couldsee their point: on family

T holidays we've always headedfor somewhere south and sunny with a warmsouthern breeze scented with wild thyme, rosemaryand Ambre Solaire. Opportunities to commit fishingin such places are usually limited to wandering upsome shrunken green rivulet through scratchybushes or trailing something out the back of a boat. Ican resist that sort of temptation. Mostly. But thistime it was different. This time we were staying inone of the troutiest spots on God's good earth. I knewthat because I'd been there last year on a fishing trip- which is when I'd spotted the little whitecottage for let.

Cliff Cottage hangs above a sheltered bay wheregrass and rock tumble down to a tiny shingle beach.Behind the cottage, hidden in bewildering folds ofrock and heather, lie the hundred lochs of SouthHarris. Last year Philip and I wandered happily intothis trouty paradise, fishing in the footsteps of thelong defunct Hebridean Sporting Association (T&SOctober 2014). This would be temptation on a grandscale. The reminder, that this was to be a familyholiday, had been equally robust. Fishing could

Jon Beer is thepresident of the

WildTroutTrust. He fishes

all over theworld and is

author of threebooks, GoneFishing, TheTrout and I,

andNot All

Beer andBezencenet.

occur but not much and only at such times when Iwasn't needed for family stuff. I closed on the dealand we set off.

It started well. It was late in the evening by thetime the ferry from Skye reached Tarbertbut in thelast days of May it was still broad daylight. As weunloaded the car at Cliff Cottage, an otter surfacedand made a leisurely tour of the little bay below thecottage. I'd sold the idea of a holiday in the far northon the promise of wildlife. The fauna, bless its socks,was doing its bit. But where was the flora when Ineeded it?

The Outer Hebrides or Western Isles form a longchain, a natural breakwater protecting north-westScotland from the worst of the furies of the northAtlantic. Of course, I didn't put it quite like this whenI suggested the holiday to Judi and Alice. Most of theislands are hard, unremitting rock with just a thinlayer of acidic peat. I didn't harp on this either. Eonsof Atlantic storms have hurled the seashells of theocean against this rock, crushing them to a paleorganic sand. This is driven by wind and waves on tothe coasts facing the open Atlantic to form a fringe ofspectacular sand dunes and white beaches. Here, thealkalinity of the crushed shell neutralises the acidityof the peat to form a fringe of fertility. This is themachair, a fertile habitat unique to these westerncoasts. In the Uists, in the southern half of the chain,

18 November 2015 I www.trout-and-salmon.co.uk

the renowned lochs of the machair are home to somevery large trout. In Harris, the beach of white sand atLuskentyre has been voted Britain's best - andamong the finest in the world - and, in earlysummer, the meadows behind these sands arefestooned in a carpet of wild flowers.

The next day we went looking for these floraljewels. It was a strong, cold wind that hadn't seendouble figures since late March. Any rare orchidsand bright blooms were sensibly keeping their headsdown. So we walked along the spectacular beachuntil my girls discovered another jewelof the dunes.

For centuries, the folk of Harrishave brought their dead to be buriedin the deep sands of the machair. Forreasons I don't care to dwell on, Judiand Alice love a good cemetery. Givethem a weathered headstone, a tragicaccident and a maudlin inscription and they'rehappy. So while my pair went merrily about theirghoulish exploration I looked out across the beach.

My obsession is with islands. They are the verystuff of adventure and romance, the essentialingredient in half the adventure stories I read as achild and the magic of these places has never wornoff. I prefer my islands like my trout streams andlochs - the smaller, remoter and less populated thebetter. And I was gazing across Luskentyrebeach to an uninhabited island I'd longed toset foot on for 20 years.

I'd seen Taransay for the first time when Philipand I came to the Hebrides intent on catching a trouton every island you could reach by ferry or bridge.But Taransay had neither. It had lochs - I'd seen them

"My obsession is withislands. They are the very

stuffofadventure"

BELOW Thebizarre cairn,built by theCastaway 2000contestants, onthe summitof Beinn nah-Uidhe.

on the map - but no-one I asked could tell me which,if any, held trout. Or how I might get there to find out.

And then, last year, as Philip and I fished our wayaround South Harris, we met a man who could. SteveWoodhall manages the Borve Lodge Estate. We'd hada wonderful day, trouting on Loch Bearastadh Morfollowed by sea-trout and Philip's first salmon on thelovely little Loch Fincastle (T&S February 2015).Borve Lodge nestles among the dunes of the machairwith Taransay tantalisingly filling the horizon to thenorth. Three years before, Steve had said, the estatehad bought the island of Taransay. If ever I came

back to Harris, Steve had said, he wouldtry to get me over to the island.

Well, now I was back and Steve was asgood as his word. On Thursdaymorning we were standing on a slipwaywatching a strange vessel inch into theshore, a landing craft that had seen

service in the Falklands 30 years before. There weresix of us: a visiting couple staying on the estate; Judiand Alice, lured by the promise of ancient tombs anda flushing lavatory; and Steve and me. We scrambledon to the lowered ramp and headed into a choppy seaunder scudding clouds.

Like many a Hebridean island, Taransay was oncea thriving community with a population in 1841 of88 souls, fishing and farming the fertile machair.Within a hundred years they had all gone,abandoning the island to the sheep and the red deer.But then, at the millennium, the island was launchedinto the limelight of the first grand experiment inreality television - Castaway 2000 - 36 people fromall walks of life attempting to create a new, self-sufficient community for the new millennium.

Steve and Pippick their wayacross theruined causewayto the dun.

What they created was a new sort of TV programme,which is all-too-much with us still. Little elseremains of Taransay's year in the spotlight. A herd ofdeer looked up as the landing craft neared the beach.And I was trying to remember whether any of thecastaways had caught trout in the island's lochs.

The lochs of Taransay lie like beads on a necklaceleading into the heart of the island. Steve and I set offto follow this string of a stream into the hills. Themain settlement had been at Paible, amid machairmeadows behind the beach. Beyond the machair theland rises into the familiar landscape of rock andheather, mosses and bog grass. Nothing was risingon Loch Cromlach. I wasn't surprised. In that chillwind I hadn't seen a trout rise since we'd arrived onHarris five days before. The trout, like the springflowers, were keeping their heads down. We climbedalong Allta' Mhuilinn, past the remains of mills thatmight have turned since the days of the Vikingsettlement- and the less lovesome remnants of theCastaways' water supply.

We were making for Loch an Duin, Taransay'slargest loch at the head of the stream. The duin- ordun - sits in the loch, some 30 yards from the shore.A vestigial causeway reached out towards theformidable remains of a square stone tower. Wepicked our way across the stones. Tony Scherr, Steve'spredecessor at Borve, had told me of a "rockingstone", a deliberately unstable stone that would rock,with a clonk, when stepped on, warning the dun'sresidents of someone's approach. They all lookedunstable to me. Several clonked: quite a few wereunderwater. But we made it. It was a spot to warm theheart of an old nisophile* -1 was standing on an islandon a loch on an island off another island. And now wewould see if there were trout to be had on Taransay.

I tackled up, tying on a Goldhead Hare's Ear in theabsence of a rising fish, and a small dark Sedgehogin case they changed their mind. I was expectingnothing so the small pluck at the Goldhead afterseveral casts was thrilling. I changed the Sedgehogfor a Bibio to fish a little deeper. Another pluck. Andthen a small trout came skittering to hand. Not aparr: a miniature adult trout with bold spots on aslender body. Its twin joined in a few minutes later. Itwas something - but only just. In the only reference Ihad found to fishing on Taransay, the writer had once"caught a glimpse of a huge golden flank turning onthe surface of Loch an Duin". He supposed it to be "alarge ferox, briefly up for some of the much smallerfry". We were catching its lunch.

•&&£r

Left: Pip, Steve's border terrier, waits patiently for a fish.Right: Thrift, or sea pink, growing in the rocks on Taransay.

TROUT IN THE OUTER H E D B R I D E S

Tfc waters were sheltered from the coldwindandin the calm ofthe windward shore I couldn't believe my eyes a trout rose"

A shout from the other end of the causewayannounced the rest of the family. They'd explored theisland's ancient graves and a seal colony: now theywere off to search for medieval middens eroding outof the sand. A golden eagle soared above the crest ofBeinn Ra as Steve and I made our way towards thelittle unnamed lochan tucked in a fold beyond anBum. He fancied our chances. So did I: smallunnamed lochans are invariably the home of largeand unexpected trout in fishing stories. But not thisone. It was shallow and weedy its surface crazed bythe sharp little shower that swept across the islandas we climbed away to the south towards Beinn nah-Uidhe. From this modest summit with its clumsyCastaways' cairn, we could see the western half ofthe island. To the west rose another hill, almostanother island, joined by a tombolo, a narrowisthmus of sand dune. To the west, beyond the stringof lochs, the eagle still circled the summit of BeinnRa. To the south we could see the brighter green ofthe machair around Paible with our landing craftwaiting in the turquoise waters beyond - and, in afold of the hillside between, sat a little lochanreflecting the chasing clouds. We made for that littlelochan and the chance of a last cast before we met theothers and embarked.

Its waters were sheltered from the cold wind by theshoulder of Beinn na h-Uidhe and in the calm of thewindward shore -1 couldn't believe my eyes - a troutrose. I sidled towards the spot and, within a couple ofcasts, the fly was taken. And the rod bent. Not much,but this was a proper fish. At just over ten inches, itwas hardly a monster but it felt like one after the

miniature fish of an Duin. It was photographed andreturned and as we grinned at this small triumphthe wind dropped and the calm stretched out acrossthe lochan. And in that moment another fish, twofish, rose in the far corner.

It was Steve's turn. He crept towards the risingfish and cast into the still corner. The heavyGoldhead landed with an alarming plop close to thefading rings. He began the retrieve. And then the rodwas nodding steeply down to the surface. Now thiswas a real fish, stirring the water from the depths.Steve fought it to the net, lifted it and we gazed inawe. It was a handsome trout, well over a pound,from this tiny loch tucked into the hill. It hasa name, that lochan, but who am I to breakwith fishing story tradition?

I'll leave it unnamed.

*A nisophile, if I haven't just made it up, is a loverofislands.T&S

ABOVESteve's fishof the day,a glorious troutfrom thelittle lochan.

[ Borve Lodge Estate ]TARANSAY AND its lochs belong to theBorve Lodge Estate. The estate has a varietyof self-catering accommodation as well as thelodge itself. Steve Woodhall, the estate manager,can usually help any residents who want tovisit the island - weather permitting. Phone01859 550 358 or visit www.borvelodge.comfor details of accommodation and theirother fishing on Harris.

www.trout-and-salmon.co.uk I November 2015 21