As Good As It Gets

How far would you travel to catch the trout of your dreams? New Zealand? Alaska? Finlay Wilson discovered that perfection swims closer to home, in the Orkneys

- Finlay Wilson

THERE ARE A fair few trophy trout lochs around Scotland that have taken up an unhealthy amount of my time. But then there isn’t a wild trout obsessive I know who doesn’t spend a sizeable chunk of their life contemplating their brownie Shangri-La. The machair waters of the Hebrides often feature in my mind’s eye, enveloped in warm westerlies and overcast skies, and where beautiful fish engulf my cunningly selected flies. As they do at other hidden oases, such as the fertile waters in Caithness, Sutherland and Wester Ross, some of which will appear on these pages in the months ahead.

One loch that’s taken up far too much head space over the years is Bea on Sanday, one of the North Isles. Bea has been on my mental map for decades due to the size and quality of its fish, but it wasn’t until recently, despite several previous trips to Orkney mainland, that I managed to make the pilgrimage that bit further north.

After my friends and former Borders neighbours Gwyd and Jayne moved to Harray on the mainland, it was only a matter of time before I hit Sanday. In May 2015 Gwyd and Jayne considerately booked self-catering there, just five minutes from Bea. Finally, the loch was there to behold in the flesh.

Bowl-shaped, about 70 acres, in a dip, a field or so beyond the sand dunes, Bea is just a few hundred yards from the turquoise sea. At first sight it doesn’t exactly grab you with obvious features or starting points, other than a telltale colour change in the water, which is common on machair lochs and denotes a drop-off or the cover of weed.