BY the time I reached the sea pool, I'd turned over three grilse without touching them. However, at last, as my little Dee Shrimp double was dawdling in the far current, a fish took hold, my Bogdan reel growled its approval and, soon, estate manager Chris Langhorne had lifted his net we were off the mark. It was my first afternoon on the Grimersta river in more than 40 years and it was good to be back.
Set in a moorland estate of more than 20,000 acres on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, the Grimersta system comprises a series of four largely shallow lochs connected by delicious streams that reach the sea in front of the Victorian lodge via the narrow river, which is about a mile and a half long. Owned and controlled by a syndicate of 25 members, it's almost like a Highland counterpoint to Hampshire's fabled Houghton Club-bar that, up here, nonmembers can occasionally take some fishing. This July, I was invited by its congenial chairman Victor Beamish for several days to celebrate the syndicate's centenary year.
Disappointed by the failure of his various Hebridean schemes, in 1924, Lord Leverhulme sold off Harris and Lewis, with a group of 13 sportsmen acquiring Grimersta. The sales particulars announced that 'The Fishing is generally agreed to be unrivalled in the British Isles' and, indeed, in their first season (1925), they accounted for a staggering 2,276 fish. Back then, the gillies were crofters who rowed all day, often against ferocious winds, and received an 'allowance' of whisky; the year ended with a fishing competition between them, followed by a ball with bagpipes. That might be a tradition worth reviving.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
