What a great interview Ian, enjoyed listening in the workshop this afternoon....better than the radio 🙂 So pleased to have found your channel. All the best.

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

3 ай бұрын

Many thanks, I really appreciate it and glad you enjoyed. Please feel free to share the channel. All the best and tight lines.

Brilliant Ian and sandy interview 👍🏻🥃

Absolutely fantastic to listen to, could listen to that man all day with his salmon fishing crack… just wish these so called experts would wake up and listen to someone with this much vast experience to try and save this magical fish….. just returned from fishing tulchan for 4 days and not one rod touched or even seen one fish.. sad times unfortunately 🎣🎣

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

3 ай бұрын

Aye, the whole salmon story is so sad but they are resilient and hopefully they'll make a return. What time of year and what beat did you fish on Tulchan?

What a fantastic interview Ian and well done to Sandy. Very interesting to hear his powerful comments on tree planting, clearing the burns and noting high water temperatures are not a new phenomenon. We are fortunate to still be able to listen to a man of such experience.

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

4 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it. Many thanks for taking time to comment.

Wonderful interview and great to listen to the advice.

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

4 ай бұрын

Thank you. It was a real honour for me do this with such a legend in the world of ghillieing.

Absolutely brilliant! What an absolute legend!!!

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

4 ай бұрын

Yes, he is that. Many thanks for the kind comment.

Sad to see the demise of the salmon . Great interview buddy you could make a living in broadcasting with your manners . Total respect for sandy shines through.

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

4 ай бұрын

Many thanks David, I'm Glad you enjoyed it so much. Thanks for taking time to make a nice comment.

Yep hopefully Ian.. fished D beat 17 March for the 4 days.. I know it’s early but like I say 6 rods per day you would think somebody would have connected with one.. hoping get up later on back end of spring so hopefully few more fish in the system 🎣🤞👍

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

3 ай бұрын

Aye, if you could get just a week later its always better. That said, sometimes conditions will play into your hand the week before. I remember doing a casting course there that week and having a couple of fish. The luck of the draw, but for sure, over time the last week in March will be better.

Thank you for sharing that Ian. A remarkable career on the river and such a humble man. It’s a great thing to be able to capture these stories and conversations and immortalise them for future generations to see and hear in the future. I’m sure I have heard or read a post about that big fish. Are you going to make a video about it as well?

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

4 ай бұрын

A real pleasure for me to do this. As you say, it will mean this whole and amazing lifetimes work will not be forgotten and Sandy's wonderful memory will live on for years to come. I will tell the story of the big fish on video for sure.

a scot born fyvie lives brisbane for 47 years great te here a bit a doric great interview coming hame in june hope to fish the don at dyce

What a great listen to one of the most experienced ghillies in Scotland interviewed by another. I concurred with all of the threads to your discussions and laughed out loud a couple of times to the anecdotes. A couple of snippets from my fishing story: When I was in Campbeltown the club President's wife told me that one day she had to tell him to stop fishing as the bath was full of Salmon and until there was room in the bath he wasn't allowed back to the river ( I'm not sure how he carried them home ). When I was in the Isle of Lewis one of the Head Ghillies came into the Bank and I was asking him about his week & what flies were taking fish and he said a green daddy so I ran round to the sports shop and bought every green daddy on the island. After work I took my made up rod from the rack in the garage put it on my rod rack on my Land Rover and went to the first loch on the Creed above the boat house and lost a Salmon during playing it, trying to answer my phone but then successfully landing a couple of sea trout so not a wasted evening. The next time I saw that Ghillies son I asked him to pass on my thanks to his Dad for the tip re the fly. He informed me that no green daddy had ever been used on their estate. In hindsight that may have been something to do with his allegiance to a certain football team here in the central belt. It just reiterated to me that if you fish with confidence in your fly or line or rod or combination of all or any of your tools you will more than likely catch fish if there are any there to be caught. As word spread over the island about my success with the green daddy and more flies came into the shop and more people took fish on them it even made the fishing report in Trout & Salmon. I started a trend. I wonder if people still catch fish on the Green Daddy on the Isle of Lewis? I could listen to more of your stories and those of your friends over the years and I hope you do recount the story of that Salmon you kept referring too.

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

4 ай бұрын

Hi John, Many thanks for the reply and the stories. Salmon fishing is one of those fantastic things that brings out the best and the worst in people. Thankfully, in my experience, much more of the former. I loved the story about the green daddy and "every part" of the back story. I remember having a French lassie fishing with me on July the 14th, a special date in the French diary, so I tied here a fly with the colours of the "tricolour". She went on to catch a couple of fish on this and was so happy. Looking at it you'd never have picked it but every time she came back, she caught fish with it. There are so many lovely such stories. Thanks for sharing yours.

@johnbrown3951

4 ай бұрын

I like you will have many stories. Maybe I will recount the story about the ghost I met on the Castle pool on the Ugie sometime whilst out sea-trout fishing.@@IanGordonsalmonfishing

An excellent Interview. Thanks for sharing. They planted loads of trees on the river endrick. Obviously certain areas will give shade and cover for fish to lie under. However most of the time they seem to plant them just for the sake of it and it will actually stop or make it awkward for the fisherman to cast or get access. As fof beavers well they are wrecking the whole of the tays riverbanks. Saw loads of them last season my pdaa ticket. Banks eroded and trees felled.

i have still got 3 devon minnows never used since i got the fly bug

Interesting that the ghillies were expected to fish through till dark. Was that because the estate wanted the fish for the table or for the market?

@IanGordonsalmonfishing

4 ай бұрын

Aye, this was an interesting point. The answer was, there were plenty at this time and estates saw them as a saleable commodity. They were packed in fish basses and sent on the train to Billingsgate. All was good for flogging the water until around the mid 90s when things began to change. There was no one more keen than me, i fished so much in the evenings through the 80s and 90s. However, because I snorkelled the pools I could see that there were fewer fish and that me catching them as they moved in the darkening meant they weren’t there for the guests the next morning. This is when, as a ghillie, personally, I stopped fishing the evenings and began to encourage the guests to fish less hours a tactic that most definitely payed off with me catching less and guests catching more. With so few fish in the river now it requires a complete re think on managing salmon as a business.

@FinLineFly

4 ай бұрын

Cheers Ian. Great video - hope to see you around on the river, not sure how much time I'll get at home this year though... tight lines! @@IanGordonsalmonfishing

Promo`SM 💕

Really enjoyed listening. So interesting. Thank you for sharing this. Sandy's surprise at seeing today's big orange flies made me laugh. What a lovely man.