“Last week in the Scottish Highlands I asked how I could get to fish the nearby lochs and was told that I needed to buy a ticket at the village shop.

The next day I climbed a mountain (“strolled up a hill”, according to some of the fitter members of our party) so didn’t manage to get to the shop until it was too late.

That evening was frustrating, as it is not in my nature to fish on a water for which I don’t have the correct ticketing and permits (stop sniggering at the back). But the following day I located the shop and bought my ticket from the owner, a very gentle lady who wished me luck. When I asked if she knew which flies and tactics might be successful she spent a while hunting for the pieces of paper that would tell me before concluding that they must all have been handed out over the years to fishermen. She apologised profusely.

I explained that it didn’t matter as I would fathom it out on the lochside. She nodded in agreement saying that she was sure I was equal to the task. In reality, I knew I would probably wait for the evening and send a sedge fly on to the surface, tweaking it occasionally. Coaxing loch trout off the top is spectacular fun.

And that is what I did.

My head swathed in a midge net, I tempted half a dozen small fish from the apparently rarely visited loch. All was going to a familiar pattern until, lifting into a fish, I realised that I was into something very different from the six inch long brown trout I had been catching.

I wound my loose line back onto the reel with my left hand whilst steering the fish with my rod and the taught line trapped between thumb and forefinger of my right hand.

When all the excess line was on the reel I was astonished as the unseen fish sped through the water, deeper and deeper, peeling a good twenty yards of line off the reel which made it sing with the most splendid ratchety noise.

After nearly ten minutes and three more powerful runs, I put the net under a wonderful wild brown trout that I guess weighed around three pounds. He had the sleek but powerful look of a cannibal who had got bigger by eating all who got in his way.

I wetted my hands and unhooked him, a tad miffed that my camera was in the car a long way away over some boggy, difficult terrain. He wouldn’t make good eating, I reasoned, and slowly lowered him back into the water, feeling his powerful body flex as he shot off.

What a memorable fish, far bigger than any I have caught from a small mountain loch before.

I sat down in the gorse and marvelled at the world, I sneezed and looked across the water. The inside of my midge netting headdress was now covered with…well… sneezy stuff. I couldn’t see in front of me.

I was happy though. I laughed out loud.

On my return to our cottage, the lady from the shop was sitting outside in her car. She had found out where I was staying, driven to the original writer of the missing fly information letter’s house, photocopied it and brought it for me to have.

What a simple act of kindness. Delighted by her thoughtfulness, I told her about my success.

Goodness only knew how big the next fish would be now that I had the correct fly information, she concluded, winking.

I liked her, and I like how the world looks from there.”