at Stirling Uni of this little piece of English automotive history, the idea was to head out, first to the Western Scottish Islands and the Isle of Skye where salmon make relative short runs from the ocean into inland lochs. Then follow the coast north to explore the Inver and the Kirkaig rivers because he had read they were wild and remote and hard to fish. Then circle back down the spine of Scotland to the South, ending the 2 month odyssey with the possibility of getting on the Spey, the Dee or the Esk (North or South). But there really was no set agenda and other than buying a cheap used car, he had not prepared very well, if at all. Chick called him on it during their call the night before Mike left. "You're winging this trip aren't you?"
"Yes I am!” He was winging it. And with the broad glen spread out around him and the promise of being up to his waist in a Scottish river by morning, he felt alive, free and happy.
hillsides of his home in southern Oregon, these were vast stretches of heather and gorse broken up by rock escarpments. The July rain drove sideways, in broad bursts, on a wind that hurled itself from the North Atlantic, down an ocean loch to the bank of beat #2 behind the hotel.
Steve Turner Photos