Yet Another Farewell

Tomatin House
September 2026

 Amongst the 150 or so posts I've written for this blog, there are several that bid farewell to Tomatin, where my salmon fly fishing journey began and so many happy memories were created.  We left sadly at the end of the 2013 season, never expecting to return.  By good fortune we came back in 2017 and enjoyed our second best week ever, despite losing 2 1/2 days to spates.  Our return in Covid and drought bound 2020 was less successful owing to the abject lack of water.  Our unexpected return this year had an air of finality against a background that suggests that this may really be our final visit.  The matriarch of the owning Glynne Percy family has died and it's possible that the house and fishing will be sold.  In that event we have no means of knowing whether any future owners might let the fishing, how and to whom.  We have to assume that this may indeed be it.

The house hasn't been let in recent years owing to the economic challenge of making it conform to the new regulatory requirements for rental properties in Scotland.  Last year John and Patrick fished the water while staying at a nearby cottage.  This year John invited me to join them, staying in a converted farmhouse at Balvaid on the other side of the river.  The other three rods would be John's son and his young party, taking the Colonel's Pool bothy and fishing on the right bank of the river.

We arrived on the Monday afternoon to find the river on its bones.  Frankly, it was so low as to be unfishable, leading us to finish early.  That night we could hear the wind and rain lashing the house, and slept soundly with the reassurance of having water for most of the week ahead.  The river rose rapidly on the Tuesday morning.  The two photos below, taken from the Colonel's bothy looking upstream to Ladies' and Garden at an interval of 60 minutes show the scale and speed of the 5' rise.

0930

1030

There seemed little point in fishing in those conditions, so my wife and I enjoyed a rainy and windy day sampling the modest delights of Nairn, which we'd not previously visited.

Garden
Head
1000 Wednesday

The river was still running strongly on Wednesday morning but falling quickly, which offered good prospects for fishing, and so it proved.  Having allowed Patrick the first run down Garden, I arrived around 10 o'clock and started fishing the pocket alongside the fast water at the head of the pool, where running fish tend to congregate before moving up.  Within 5 minutes a decent grilse took my MCX Dark #8 and after an uneventful fight returned briskly to its running.  I missed another shortly afterwards, but by virtue of my good fortune and high morale, I wasn't unduly bothered.

Garden
Tail
1100 Wednesday

I fished on down to the bottom of the pool to cover the quieter lies down at the wood.  The flow profile had changed since 2017, with the main exit shifting across from the near side to just beyond the middle.  One of the keys to success in Garden is, if at all possible, to avoid wading.  The deeper water starts about 10-15 feet from the shore, and running grilse will exploit the easier flow up the left bank.

After failing to touch a fish in this usually productive stretch I concluded that a proportion of the salmon present were running, and those moving up from the lower river were yet to arrive.

Churan
Head
0930 Thursday

 On Thursday I started on Churan in a brisk upstream wind.  As the water had fallen and cleared I was fishing light with the 12' 8" #7 XO and a plain fluorocarbon leader to an MCX double.

A fish took the fly from a lie just beyond the rocks in the middle that mark the start of the faster water at the head of the pool.  Instead of turning away and kicking it moved sedately to my right into the main flow.  It didn't seem to be of any great size or to be especially bothered by being hooked, maintaining its steady progress upstream against a light drag.  When it had drawn level with me, it turned towards me, and without any unusual action on its part or mine, ejected the hook.  It was probably the lowest-key take I've ever experienced with a salmon, more chub than salmo salar.  I missed a grilse shortly afterwards: clearly this wasn't my morning.

After lunch I headed up the glen to the Farr water, which John had taken as an insurance against low water and loss of capacity at Tomatin.  I'd not previously fished up there, so this was a journey of discovery in steadily worsening weather.  The stretch, which is about 4 miles upstream from Tomatin, runs on the left bank from Dalmigavie Lodge down to just below Dalarossie Church, and contains 3 or 4 decent pools.  The density of fish was unlikely to be any higher than at Tomatin, but it seemed well worth exploring, although the weather did temper my enthusiasm.

The Laird's Pool
Dalmigavie
Thursday 1500

After parking at Dalmigavie Bridge beside the Lodge Pool, I walked some distance down the left bank with the wind and rain on my back.  The Laird's Pool, about 500 yards below the bridge is the first really fishy site you encounter.  It's about 25-30 yards wide and very exposed to the elements.  Croys on both banks constrict the flow while creating a series of attractive holding spots.  I started fishing where the water deepened and covered the whole pool around the corner to the left until reaching the next shallows.  The wind was blowing up to 20 mph, with frequent showers that forced me to put up my hood.  I heartily dislike the enforced loss of situational awareness.

In the conditions the fishing was quite challenging, although the 12' 7" #7 allowed me to deliver an intermediate tip and small MCX conehead across the entire width without undue effort.  Despite the promise offered by some very attractive lies it was an uneventful sortie.  The walk back to the car into the teeth of the wind with the rain striking my jacket like birdshot was dour enough to persuade me to call it a day.

Dalnahoyn
0930

Friday morning saw me back on the upper section, where I started at the head of Dalnahoyn under the A9 viaduct.  Historically this has been one of my favourite and most productive pools at Tomatin.  However, a succession of major storms have changed the flow at the neck, bringing it towards the left bank and removing the former right bank defile; moved lots of rocks and the lies that used to be in the foreground of the photo; and rendered the inlet to the left unwadeable.  With a 20+mph downstream wind complicated by the turbulence generated by the viaduct and railway bridge, this was a very challenging fishing proposition, and frankly not much fun.

After fishing to the viaduct I trudged downstream to Wade's for a couple of casts to placate the fishing gods, before making the long trek down to Garden.  There isn't a path along the bank, so you pick your way along meandering sheep tracks through the thistles.

Garden
Friday 1200

Garden in the midday sun and sheltered from the wind helped to restore my morale.  The water had fallen considerably from Wednesday's ideal fishing height, but there was still enough to allow fish to run in daylight.  Accordingly, I once again targeted the pocket and the near edge of the fast water for a pausing runner.  On my fifth cast the plan worked when a small 2SW of about 5 1/2 lbs took the #10 MCX, just as my wife arrived with her phone to record the event.  The last time she achieved such perfect fishing timing was in the same pool in 2011 for a much better fish.

Drain (the House Pool)
Friday 1400

After lunch I waded across the Major's shallows to fish Drain from the right bank, which gave me an entirely new perspective.  Previously we'd always fished it from the grass you can see in the left of the photo.  The biggest challenge came if you hooked a fish, because the bank is 5 feet high, vertical and falls into deep water, making solo netting a very risky proposition.  This led to some heroic leading of fish most of the way upstream to Colonel's.

Although the water had fallen a lot since the young rods were catching fish here earlier in the week, I thoroughly enjoyed fishing it from the right bank.  From there I made my way downstream to Rocky, again from an entirely new perspective.  There was, however, nothing new about me missing a take in the head of Rocky, just a typical tap-tap gone of a grilse, nothing more.

Church Pool
Saturday 1100
before the storm

The weather forecast for Saturday was dire, with warnings of gale force gusts around lunchtime.  My morning allocation was up at the Farr water, so I opted to have a late start and fish the Church pool at Dalarossie.  The entry section is largely inaccessible (around the corner to the right); the middle is slow and enormously deep; and the tail in the foreground is generally the most productive part.  It's not wide and can all be covered from the bank.  With the continuing fall in the level and lack of flow, you had to strip plenty of line to work the fly.

I had about half an hour's fishing in a rising wind before the storm hit.

It was impossible to fish in such conditions.  Even standing up was a serious challenge.  With discretion being the better part of valour, I retired to the lee of the churchyard wall for shelter as the wind roared down the pool.

I closed the week with a short valedictory session on Garden, in what may have been my final, final farewell to this lovely pool that has given me so many fish over the years.  It was wonderful.

While I miss the raucous multi-generation family house parties of years gone by, perhaps this low key week with two close friends and their wives in a small farmhouse was better suited to my advancing years.  If we do not return I shall miss it terribly, but in an overall context of gratitude.  This is where the story of Just One Week and my salmon fishing journey began, where my enthusiasm was ignited, and where, after 25 years, I had become confident and relaxed enough not to regard just two fish in a week as a failure.  In fact, we had 17 between the 6 rods, and everyone enjoyed themselves.  Au revoir Tomatin.