In the 1996 Hooked on Scottish series, Paul Young travels to Ayrshire meets Sandy Bullock, who has built “the ultimate angling accessory”, a home-made trout loch.
Two years earlier this had been a featureless boggy field, but Sandy transformed it into a haven for birdlife and also for a highly prized species of trout, the steelhead.
Paul casts from the pier using a brown fly, designed to sit in the surface film.
The water is very clear water, so the fish can see every movement of the fly.
A steelhead is caught: “Quite different from a rainbow. A long slim fish, not unlike a salmon shape. Lovely blush of pink in the gill cover, and a big spade of a tail. A very handsome fish.”
www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/fish/steelheadtrout.htm
