A Wee Scottish Tale of Dap & Cow Pat
Thought I would run this wee story by you guys. One I composed some years ago about a youthful encounter with Dap, The Gamekeeper & a Cows Erse
Dap: The art of fishing a natural fly or grasshopper on a small bait hook poked though bushes over water & "dapped" on the surface.
More commonly, well maybe not so common a method of fishing a large bushy fly on open water where by using an overlong rod & floss line allows the fly to "dap" & bounce along the waves & in so doing bring up Trutta & on occasion Salar.
But it is the first description my tale is about.
A Tale of Dap & Cow Pat
Gerry Tim & myself had caught the bus from Glasgow to Lochwinnoch early that
Saturday morning, we were off to a small loch in the hills above Queenslie Muir
We were a bit apprehensive though as we really should not have been there.
It was a small private loch syndicated to a few well heeled gents & guarded by an old gnarled gamekeeper with a mean disposition. Gerry had found it one day as he wandered the hill looking for an American World War 2 bomber that had crashed in 1944, one of the engines had been dug out & could now be seen to observers. He reported back he had found not only the crash scene but more importantly a lovely wee loch full of butter bellied Brown Trout.
We had fished it us boys, well maybe poached it would be a better description on more than a few occasions & lovely breakfast fish we had from it too.
A small burn tumbled out from it & it was along this we crept avoiding the gamekeeper?s cottage. Occasionally we were spotted and a chase ensued, but we were fit in those days & easily outpaced him. boyhood matinee diet of Hopalong Cassidy & the Lone Ranger normally served us well in our endeavors to keep us hidden from sight.
On this particular Saturday we had got up to the loch unobserved or so we thought, the wily old git had indeed seen us & had crept up unseen. Sensing his presence we grabbed our gear & a few fat Trout we had caught bolted down the burn with him in hot pursuit.
That was a close thing says Gerry he nearly had us as we lay beside the wee waterfall pool downstream puffing & panting to regain our breath.
Day not wasted though says Gerry always the innovator of our wee party, lets dap the wee pools under the overhanging Birch & Rowan. Not for us the palmer's or dry fly, real stuff for us. We would catch cow dung fly,bluebottle Mayfly or Caddis in season, anything big enough that we could impale on a small bait hook, poke through the overhanging trees & dap on the dark stained water. Always a way to winkle out a "better Trout" this method was.
A quick scour of the surrounding grass yielded very few suitable specimens, couple of moths & a Crane Fly. Noting a cow pat teaming with Cow Dung Fly & Bluebottle we broke off a few small leaf branches from a convenient bush creeping along the grass we rose up & swatted it, trapping some in the gooey mess. Me I bit flew up a bit flew up stuck in my mouth which caused a bit of laughter from the other two. Gingerly we picked out the trapped flies & stuck them into an old bait tin.
With a sense off foreboding I squinted to the side & sitting on the hill above us was his nibs complete with his old sheepdog observing us in silence. Warning the others we upped sticks & ran for our lives, but this time no pursuit ensued.
Looking back we saw him & dog beating a hasty retreat. He had followed us all the way downstream unobserved, fly old devil taking his dog that was but why the retreat? we had no idea. Later on as we sat & had lunch we thought how the conversation at his home might have gone.
Gamekeeper to wife: chased them wee bastards that have been poaching the loch....... thought they had escaped me but good old Shep sniffed them out.
Wife: Aye you have been after them for a while. poor wee souls they are only fishing
Gamekeeper: bloody poachers boys or no
You'll never believe this though. Caught up with them at the wee waterfall & you will never guess what I saw them doing
Wife: go on pray tell
Gamekeeper: Well they had these branches & were lying around this cow pat. Next thing they jumped up & swatted it.
Wife: yeah very good, you been drinking?
Gamekeeper: no honest I?m no kidding Then they started picking at it & putting bits into an old tin, one of them even ate a bit. No way was I staying around, bloody mad men.
Wife: away & lie down you old fool, you have been drinking. Eating Cow Pat indeed whatever next?
We laughed for the rest of the day
I wonder in my twilight years if the loch is still there? If he is still there?. Are the Trout still rising? Indeed would the Dap still work? I am sure it would
Tight Lines
