Out of character.

When you decide to go out and try to catch something new, it often pays to do some research. Know your quarry. Proper preparation and all that. So, earlier this year, I set about learning everything I could about the humble stone loach. A small bottom feeding nocturnal fish that lives in rocky, fast flowing rivers and streams, that hides during the day, coming out after dark to hunt using three pairs of barbules around its under slung mouth. Over the years, I've occasionally found that scientific papers can be a treasure trove of information. In one that a Google search threw up, I discovered a set of electro fishing survey results that gave me a few locations where very health populations of stone loach were found. Armed with this info, I set off to fish Ecclesmachan Burn in West Lothian, the stream where the researchers had found the highest concentration of my target. I fished with pinkies and tried a couple of different presentations, small floats in slower moving water and a running ledger on the bottom where the current was stronger. Several sessions over the early summer months produced a surprising amount of little fish, but not my intended target, sadly.

Three spined sticklebacks made a large percentage of my catch, including some males in their vibrant breeding colouration.

I also caught plenty of minnows as well.

A tiny bit disheartened by my lack of success in West Lothian, I decided to try a little closer to home and had a few evening sessions on the Water of Leith. This produced even more minnows, three spined sticklebacks, as well as a few brown trout and also a few bullheads after dark.

A nice Water of Leith brown trout. Great fun on my ultra light rod.

Not the correct nocturnal fish, but it was fun to catch a few of them all the same.

By this point I needed a break from creeping about after dark trying to catch a stone loach, so I drove to Balquhidder and hiked up Glen Kirkton to a remote highland hill loch with my mate Nick. It perhaps wasn't the best plan to undertake the trip on what would turn out to be the hottest day ever recorded in the UK, but the loch in question has a resident population of brook trout, which happened to be the next target on my list. To say the climb up was pretty brutal would be a huge understatement, but we had a few stops and, luckily for us, shortly after we got up to the loch a few clouds rolled over to provide some respite from the summer sun. It even rained lightly a few times, which also helped cool us down.  

Are we almost there yet?

The sun beating down as our walk up the hillside continued.

Just before reaching the loch, we came to Rob Roy's putting stone, a huge lump of rock that has fallen away from the cliff behind it.

Finally, we reached Lochan an Eireannaich, The Irishman's loch. The water was crystal clear and I wondered if the fishing would be difficult as a result.

The hike up may have been tough, but the fishing was even tougher. So tough in fact that I caught the only fish of the entire day about half an hour before we were planning on packing up. It wasn't even what we'd hiked all the way up there to catch. No, sadly it wasn't a brook trout. Incredibly, I'd managed to catch my first ever stone loach! Not in fast flowing water, in a hill loch. Not after dark, in the bright sunlight of the hottest day ever recorded in the UK! Not on a bait presented on the bottom, on a maggot fished a foot off the bottom! Just goes to show that sometimes in fishing, a huge slice of luck is all you require! Needless to say, I couldn't believe it and was grinning all the way back down the glen!

My first ever stone loach! What a cool little fish! What a stroke of luck!

One step closer to my goal, I was still keen to catch my first brook trout, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to repeat the hike up to Lochan an Eireannaich again in a great hurry. A bit of research into alternative potential brook trout venues that didn't involve a four-hour hike was definitely in order!

Tight lines, Scott.