A POACHER’S TALE
I grew up in Scotland in a small village called Bridge of Allen.
The area had good fishing waters all around. The rivers were the Allen, the Teith and the Forth. All had salmon, browns, rainbows and sea trout. Loch Leven was not far away but this was the 1950’s and with a fee of ₤1/day, I did not fish Loch Leven often.
Bridge of Allen’s main claim to fame is “the waters” and there are three tourist “spa” hotels. It soon dawned on this juvenile delinquent that the patrons of these hotels loved their salmon. To exploit this I entered into an agreement with the chef at one of the hotels that I would produce salmon pretty well “on demand”. I had a problem, however, in that I did not have a telephone. We agreed that Marcel, the chef, would call and leave coded messages with one of my aunts who ran an ice cream parlor in the village. My aunts were Italian and staunch law-abiding Catholics. I don’t think a message such as “Tell Neil that Marcel called and he needs two large punctures fixed” fooled my aunts at all. They knew something was going on and I would have been in big trouble had they known that my activities were illegal. But a 20lb fish at ₤1/lb for fresh salmon I was hooked.
One day I was, reluctantly, given the message that Marcel “wants to borrow one large fly-rod”. It had rained and the river was in full spate so the salmon were moving upriver to spawn. I rushed over to the pub and leaning in the doorway asked “Is Jock Campbell here?” Jock Campbell, a local ne’er-do-well, was my poaching mentor. The publican’s wife knew that I was underage and had let it be known that there were no exceptions to her rules of entry. She did give the message to Jock, however, and Jock came to the entrance with alacrity. We arranged to meet at dusk to go get a fish to fill Marcel’s order.
There are two weirs on the river at Bridge of Allen. The lower one is in the village below the bridge and is a perfect vantage point to watch the fish “running the weir”. We were ecstatic to see there were lots of fish “on the spawn” and getting one would be “a piece of cake”.
An hour later we are hidden in the bushes on the edge of the upper weir. Our technique consisted of me running across the weir to the other side to put a chicken wire screen frame in the salmon ladder so that the fish had to swim up the weir. The surface of the weir was covered with green slime so my boots were “tacketted” with small cleats. I returned to where Jock was hidden. Now all we had to do was wait until a fish showed itself by splashing up the weir. We waited and waited but saw no activity. We were nervous because with the roar of the water a policeman could have come have come right down and touched us. We did not fear the Fisheries officers as they were all in their seventies and even, eighties. After what we had observed at the lower weir, we were amazed that no fish were moving. After thirty minutes or so we were signing to each other that we should get out of there.
Just then, there was splashing on the far side. I launched myself onto the weir, legs churning and gaff at the ready. I caught up with the fish at the brim of the weir and arced the gaff down, hooked into the fish and in one smooth movement, swung it up under my left arm. I knew full well I had to keep moving or I would be swept downstream. Suddenly I felt severe pain in my left side. My fish had its teeth embedded in my “love-handles”. Fish be damned. I had gaffed an otter through the back of its neck. Jock watched me stumble in agony back to his side of the river and when he saw the otter, he laconically muttered “Nae wonder ther’s nae fish movin!”
Many years later and on the sad occasion of traveling to Scotland for my father’s funeral, I stopped in to the pub. Walking in, I hear “Neil Sutherland, dae ye mind the time ye gaffed the otter?” Of course, it was Jock and out of character, he bought me a pint. Since I think he got ₤5 for the otter pelt I finally got a small share of the proceeds of that night.