Diary Of An Everyday Angler Ninja Fishing

Jem Packer makes a lightning-strike trip to Raith Lake as he fishes like a ninja in a short, sharp session while at the in-laws…

We everyday anglers don’t have the luxury of needing to fish for our country or having a long annual week of fishing booked on a far-flung salmon river. We have to be canny to get our fishing in. We need to establish easily accessible fishing spots, places that lend themselves to ultra-fast trips. Like fishing ninjas we need to be able to make short and swift surgical strikes: morning sessions, a couple of hours mid-afternoon, but always back in time for tea.

With years of experience doing this I consider myself to have a black belt in this type of fishing. So when I married a girl from Kirkcaldy I soon reconnoitred the area and was delighted to discover a lake, practically in town, just down the road from my in-laws.

I first fished Raith Lake, Fife, over 15 years ago and I have fished it once or twice every year ever since. However, on my latest visit to Scotland my mother-in-law informed me that there had been a ‘change of management’. Sadly, these days when I hear about any kind of a change at a favourite fishery my blood runs cold. I was expecting her to say it had been turned into a supermarket car park or drained to make way for a power station, but fortunately it was still very much there and still very much a trout fishery. Of course, I needed to ‘investigate’, for the sake of research you understand, nothing to do with wanting a morning’s fishing.

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