I spent eight months in Scotland for school. I call it my long winter - it was 55* and cloudy when I got off the plane in September, and 55* and cloudy when I got back on the plane in May. Summer is the best time to go, from my perspective - more likely to get clear sunny days with temps above 60*. But also the most crowded.
I was in school at St. Andrews - it's a small city, with tons of historic stuff and a couple of pleasant beaches. I think that's a must see. Edinburgh is worth a visit, but you almost can't go to Scotland without going through Edinburgh at some point.
The Highlands are beautiful, in sort of an austere way. Not too many trees, but lots of craggy hills/mountains. You may know this, but a quirk of British law is that you can walk pretty much anywhere, even on private property, so there are lots of lovely hikes you can do. (In St. Andrews, there's a great cliff-side/coastal trail.)
The islands are nice, too, from what I hear. Especially if you like whisky, there are some good distillery tours there (and elsewhere in Scotland) that are worth a trip. I can't drink, so this is all hearsay. Glasgow was supposed to be up-and-coming when I was there (2003), but you have to be a very active listener to make sense of the accent.
Is there fishing? Yes, there is. You would almost certainly want a guide ("ghilly"), or at least a hotel that has a fishing beat. The summer before my senior year of high school, my family took a trip to the UK, and I had just started fly fishing. I was told this was my 'senior trip', but I wanted to go to Costa Rica to fish for snook (I had never seen a snook in the wild at that point). As a bribe to get me to go, my parents assured me that we would go to Scotland so I could go fishing, and they bought me a new travel 6-wt fly rod. I tied a bunch of trout flies.
We arrived in the UK in a record heat wave -- like 90*, people were dropping like flies (beadheads?) in London from heat stroke. We scrapped our original plan to stay in the south of England, and fled for the coolest parts of the country and generally did non-fishing stuff for a week and a half. Finally we got to Scotland where we were staying at a hotel that had a fishing beat and was a short walk from a trout farm. The first day we went to the trout farm, which cost 25 GBP - $63 in 2017 money - and I barely knew what I was doing. I flogged the water for a couple of hours with no luck, and then around dusk I tied on a tiny mayfly that I had tied using a scrap of fly line for the body. In a handful of casts, I caught two nice trout - the limit - while almost nobody else fishing was catching anything. My dad informed me I caught two 12.5 pound trout, which made me think the money was the main thing for him. We took the fish back to the hotel where the kitchen cleaned and cooked them - I think they were poached, probably the blandest trout I have ever eaten. But at that point, I thought I was straight killing it with the fly rod.
So the next day, the hotel owner took me to his beat on the River Tay, which he assured me was full of trout. He dropped me off wearing knee-high boots and said I could fish my way back upstream for a mile or so, and then the hotel was half a mile above that. To get to the river I had to walk down a fern-covered hill; it was pretty steep but I did okay. When I got to the bottom and started to cast, I realized I had broken the tip off my rod. I tried to make it work but I soon realized I was done.
I had to slog a mile and a half in rubber boots a couple sizes too big for me, and I topped them several times so they were constantly full of water. The whole I was looking at the river, and I saw nothing that looked like a trout - but, of course, it was a heat wave, over 80* in that part of Scotland - so the fish probably had ditched. I did see one large fish that was either a salmon or a carp, but at that point I was powerless to do anything about it.
I made sure the rest of the trip that I blamed the whole thing on my parents being too cheap to hire me a proper guide. And, in fact, I believe they truly regretted the fishing part of the trip, although probably not for the reasons I had in mind.
Miles
On Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 4:34:05 PM UTC-4, Bryan wrote:
-- I was in school at St. Andrews - it's a small city, with tons of historic stuff and a couple of pleasant beaches. I think that's a must see. Edinburgh is worth a visit, but you almost can't go to Scotland without going through Edinburgh at some point.
The Highlands are beautiful, in sort of an austere way. Not too many trees, but lots of craggy hills/mountains. You may know this, but a quirk of British law is that you can walk pretty much anywhere, even on private property, so there are lots of lovely hikes you can do. (In St. Andrews, there's a great cliff-side/coastal trail.)
The islands are nice, too, from what I hear. Especially if you like whisky, there are some good distillery tours there (and elsewhere in Scotland) that are worth a trip. I can't drink, so this is all hearsay. Glasgow was supposed to be up-and-coming when I was there (2003), but you have to be a very active listener to make sense of the accent.
Is there fishing? Yes, there is. You would almost certainly want a guide ("ghilly"), or at least a hotel that has a fishing beat. The summer before my senior year of high school, my family took a trip to the UK, and I had just started fly fishing. I was told this was my 'senior trip', but I wanted to go to Costa Rica to fish for snook (I had never seen a snook in the wild at that point). As a bribe to get me to go, my parents assured me that we would go to Scotland so I could go fishing, and they bought me a new travel 6-wt fly rod. I tied a bunch of trout flies.
We arrived in the UK in a record heat wave -- like 90*, people were dropping like flies (beadheads?) in London from heat stroke. We scrapped our original plan to stay in the south of England, and fled for the coolest parts of the country and generally did non-fishing stuff for a week and a half. Finally we got to Scotland where we were staying at a hotel that had a fishing beat and was a short walk from a trout farm. The first day we went to the trout farm, which cost 25 GBP - $63 in 2017 money - and I barely knew what I was doing. I flogged the water for a couple of hours with no luck, and then around dusk I tied on a tiny mayfly that I had tied using a scrap of fly line for the body. In a handful of casts, I caught two nice trout - the limit - while almost nobody else fishing was catching anything. My dad informed me I caught two 12.5 pound trout, which made me think the money was the main thing for him. We took the fish back to the hotel where the kitchen cleaned and cooked them - I think they were poached, probably the blandest trout I have ever eaten. But at that point, I thought I was straight killing it with the fly rod.
So the next day, the hotel owner took me to his beat on the River Tay, which he assured me was full of trout. He dropped me off wearing knee-high boots and said I could fish my way back upstream for a mile or so, and then the hotel was half a mile above that. To get to the river I had to walk down a fern-covered hill; it was pretty steep but I did okay. When I got to the bottom and started to cast, I realized I had broken the tip off my rod. I tried to make it work but I soon realized I was done.
I had to slog a mile and a half in rubber boots a couple sizes too big for me, and I topped them several times so they were constantly full of water. The whole I was looking at the river, and I saw nothing that looked like a trout - but, of course, it was a heat wave, over 80* in that part of Scotland - so the fish probably had ditched. I did see one large fish that was either a salmon or a carp, but at that point I was powerless to do anything about it.
I made sure the rest of the trip that I blamed the whole thing on my parents being too cheap to hire me a proper guide. And, in fact, I believe they truly regretted the fishing part of the trip, although probably not for the reasons I had in mind.
Miles
On Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 4:34:05 PM UTC-4, Bryan wrote:
What are the must-sees in Scotland? what is the best time of year?Thanks,Bryan
http://www.tpfr.org
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