Roger Dowsett - Novar Fishings
This month, Roger Dowsett, Fishery Manager and guide for the Novar Fishings, River Alness, sits in the hot seat and faces the Ghillies’s 10!
1. SSFS: What is the biggest salmon you have ever caught?
RD: Alas, just 18 pounds, caught on the River Dee from the Banchory-Devenick beat in 1996. But let me tell you about the ones that have got away…!
2. SSFS: What is the most memorable salmon you have ever caught?
RD: For me the most memorable salmon are generally ones that you have lost, thankfully less frequent these days. When you lose a good fish, the adrenalin leaves your body in an instant, and it seems the memory is captured like a photograph. I can remember the first salmon I ever lost, far more clearly than my first capture, both occurring within a few days of each other, as a teenager on the River Alness.
3. SSFS: What is your favourite fly?
RD: While there are some excellent modern patterns about, it has to be the Willie Gunn, a very successful fly on Highland rivers which produces fish all year round. If I could only ever fish with one fly, this would be it.
4. SSFS: What is your favourite salmon pool?
RD: A bit biased I know, but it has to be upper Raven’s Rock on Beat 4 of the River Alness. It’s a truly spectacular setting and a dream to fish with the fly.
5. SSFS: If there was one place in the world you could salmon fish, where would it be and why?
RD: I would love to fish for salmon in Iceland. I like the idea of sight fishing in that crystal clear water, and targeting individual fish, in some of the most unspoilt surroundings in the world. I’d happily carry someone’s bag…!
6. SSFS: What is the most unusual sight you have ever seen on the river?
RD: I was guiding for a client on the River Alness in search of his first salmon. We were fishing the Hoch pool when he suddenly had a good take. I urged him to ‘lift the rod’, but while he was considering what this meant, the line began to travel towards us. The salmon came right to our feet, where it dropped the fly like a faithful Labrador, before returning to the depths.
7. SSFS: What are the worst conditions in which you have seen a salmon being caught?
RD: It was 25 degrees and a bright cloudless sky. I was fishing the Lower River Oykel with the water running 2 inches below summer level. I managed to catch 3 grilse on a bottle tube before lunch. God knows how; they were apparently the only fish caught on the river that day!
8. SSFS: What do you love about being a guide?
RD: Introducing novices to fly fishing and helping them to catch their first salmon are the highlights of my job. It gives me great satisfaction to share this magical moment with them and to feel I have helped convert them to this great sport.
9. SSFS: What is your salmon fishing pet hate?
RD: Weather forecasters. The quality of their forecasting seems poorer than ever, and they seem to have no understanding that there are people out there, who make decisions daily based on these forecasts. A recent trend has been to ‘over forecast’, to err towards the worst weather scenario, rather than present the certainty of different outcomes, as presumably this covers their backsides. Their pay should be performance based, and perhaps they would care more, and be a little less glib. Rant over!
10. SSFS: What is your favourite fishing dram?
RD: After a day on the river, a wee dram of Dalmore, made from our own water, will never go amiss!
Novar Fishings offers prime salmon fishing on six beats of the stunning River Alness.
For more information click on the link below:
http://novar.alnessfishing.com