Dispatches from the Sporting Life Read Online Free
Author: Mordecai Richler
notoriously thieving lot.
The head gillie, wearing a deerstalker cap, outfits me with hip boots and a fifteen-foot, two-handed rod, traditional in Scotland. At home, we use a ten-foot rod, a one-hander, so I will have to make a considerable adjustment. I am driven down to a beat on the Spey, where I am astonished to see manicured lawns, picnic tables, and a fishing “shack” that would rent for $8,000 a summer in the Hamptons. In Canada, of course, we fish in rough country, bush country, blackflies and mosquitoes the unhappy rule. Within a couple of hours I can manage, but have hardly mastered, the two-handed rod and the tricksy Spey double-cast, all to no avail. The only salmon left in the river in mid-September are black salmon, that is to say, derelict scrawny fish that have loitered in the Spey for years and have learned to eschew any fly thrown over their heads.
Come noon, on Canadian rivers, I would not be surprised to see a moose or a black bear wanderingdown to the water’s edge. But in the Highlands, at the stroke of twelve o’clock, an appropriately attired waiter is sent down from the lodge with a much-needed bottle of single-malt Scotch, white wine, and a baffling hot lunch: pasta served with a baked potato. Then, casting into a stiff wind, I spend another miserable two hours on the beat without raising a fish.
The odious Joseph is lying in wait in the drawing room with his
carte du vins.
“We’ll have a bottle of Château Margaux tonight,” I say, after consulting my wife.
“Very good, sir.”
“Wait. Tell me, Joseph, do you think that’s an excellent choice?”
“But, of course, sir.”
The American couple drifts in from their afternoon stroll. “I’d like a gin and tonic, please,” the lady says.
“Tanqueray?” Joseph asks.
“I don’t understand,” she replies, appealing to her husband.
“It’s their accent,” he assures her. “My wife would like a GIN AND TONIC!”
The grouse shooters are back. Those self-satisfied bastards, preceded by an army of beaters from a neighbouring estate, have taken fourteen birds. I retreat to our room just in time to field a phone call from our friends in London.
“Well, we’ve ordered the wine, but naturally we’re counting on you for the yummy salmon.”
Shit. Switching on the bedside radio, I tune in on a convention of the Scottish Nationalist Party. The speaker proclaims, “The Soviet Union treats itsethnic minorities better than England does the Scots,” and harvests wild applause.
The Highlands Tourist Office, determined to dispel a nasty myth, has issued a pamphlet that claims, “We have wet weather and dry weather, but no bad weather.” All the same, I waken to windowpane-rattling wind. Driving rain. But I’m out on the river immediately after breakfast, casting to no point until my arm throbs and cursing the Highlands Tourist Office for assuring me that mid-September was vintage time on the Spey.
Compensations. Today we have been invited to lunch at the Macallan distillery, some ten miles from Tulchan Lodge, on the Spey side in the lee of the Grampian Mountains. Kingsley Amis, who certainly ought to know, has pronounced Macallan “about the most delicious malt ever,” and I am inclined to agree, especially as we are being poured the eighteen-year-old stuff. In fact, by the time lunch is ready I have such an agreeable buzz on that I’m even willing to forgive our host for serving us locally caught salmon.
Chatting with the amiable W. C. H. Phillips, managing director of Macallan, I get some notion of just how much a productive stretch of the Spey is actually worth. In 1954, Phillips tells us, Macallan was offered a two-mile section of the river for $10,000 but, following a directors’ meeting, declined the deal. Then, four years ago, the two-mile stretch of the Spey came up for sale again. Macallan bid$765,000 for
one-third
of it, and that offer was promptly declined as insultingly inadequate.
Following a quick breakfast,
The head gillie, wearing a deerstalker cap, outfits me with hip boots and a fifteen-foot, two-handed rod, traditional in Scotland. At home, we use a ten-foot rod, a one-hander, so I will have to make a considerable adjustment. I am driven down to a beat on the Spey, where I am astonished to see manicured lawns, picnic tables, and a fishing “shack” that would rent for $8,000 a summer in the Hamptons. In Canada, of course, we fish in rough country, bush country, blackflies and mosquitoes the unhappy rule. Within a couple of hours I can manage, but have hardly mastered, the two-handed rod and the tricksy Spey double-cast, all to no avail. The only salmon left in the river in mid-September are black salmon, that is to say, derelict scrawny fish that have loitered in the Spey for years and have learned to eschew any fly thrown over their heads.
Come noon, on Canadian rivers, I would not be surprised to see a moose or a black bear wanderingdown to the water’s edge. But in the Highlands, at the stroke of twelve o’clock, an appropriately attired waiter is sent down from the lodge with a much-needed bottle of single-malt Scotch, white wine, and a baffling hot lunch: pasta served with a baked potato. Then, casting into a stiff wind, I spend another miserable two hours on the beat without raising a fish.
The odious Joseph is lying in wait in the drawing room with his
carte du vins.
“We’ll have a bottle of Château Margaux tonight,” I say, after consulting my wife.
“Very good, sir.”
“Wait. Tell me, Joseph, do you think that’s an excellent choice?”
“But, of course, sir.”
The American couple drifts in from their afternoon stroll. “I’d like a gin and tonic, please,” the lady says.
“Tanqueray?” Joseph asks.
“I don’t understand,” she replies, appealing to her husband.
“It’s their accent,” he assures her. “My wife would like a GIN AND TONIC!”
The grouse shooters are back. Those self-satisfied bastards, preceded by an army of beaters from a neighbouring estate, have taken fourteen birds. I retreat to our room just in time to field a phone call from our friends in London.
“Well, we’ve ordered the wine, but naturally we’re counting on you for the yummy salmon.”
Shit. Switching on the bedside radio, I tune in on a convention of the Scottish Nationalist Party. The speaker proclaims, “The Soviet Union treats itsethnic minorities better than England does the Scots,” and harvests wild applause.
The Highlands Tourist Office, determined to dispel a nasty myth, has issued a pamphlet that claims, “We have wet weather and dry weather, but no bad weather.” All the same, I waken to windowpane-rattling wind. Driving rain. But I’m out on the river immediately after breakfast, casting to no point until my arm throbs and cursing the Highlands Tourist Office for assuring me that mid-September was vintage time on the Spey.
Compensations. Today we have been invited to lunch at the Macallan distillery, some ten miles from Tulchan Lodge, on the Spey side in the lee of the Grampian Mountains. Kingsley Amis, who certainly ought to know, has pronounced Macallan “about the most delicious malt ever,” and I am inclined to agree, especially as we are being poured the eighteen-year-old stuff. In fact, by the time lunch is ready I have such an agreeable buzz on that I’m even willing to forgive our host for serving us locally caught salmon.
Chatting with the amiable W. C. H. Phillips, managing director of Macallan, I get some notion of just how much a productive stretch of the Spey is actually worth. In 1954, Phillips tells us, Macallan was offered a two-mile section of the river for $10,000 but, following a directors’ meeting, declined the deal. Then, four years ago, the two-mile stretch of the Spey came up for sale again. Macallan bid$765,000 for
one-third
of it, and that offer was promptly declined as insultingly inadequate.
Following a quick breakfast,
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