only 92 and has remarkably sharp eyes. We passed the rod to him and he immediately proclaimed “Ah, a Tayside!” Tim and I looked at each other. We had both misread the handwritten name. Everything quickly fell into place. The correct name led us to its maker, John Gow of Dundee, Scotland. So off to Calabogie it went, with some hastily assembled supplies of color preserver and varnish. A couple of weeks later the job
We were puzzled by the rod’s
provenance. The word “Layside” was hand-written on the cane, but the maker’s label was incomplete. We took it to “Mon Village”, where we met Pete for our annual pre- hunt lunch. Pete Stephenson is a fly fisherman, and a veteran of the wartime merchant navy. He is
was done, I returned to Victoria, with venison in my hand baggage, and Tim passed the rod back to its owner. And now the story really starts. A kind thank-you note from
Ron a few days later revealed a fascinating provenance of the “Tayside”. When Ron’s father graduated from medical school in the early ‘50s, his own father presented him with this very rod, made in Dundee where they lived. The rod moved to Lochinver on
Scotland’s west coast when the young doctor took up a GP position. Great fishing was to be had in the lochs and rivers that abound in the area. The location was idyllic. But the owner of the “Tayside” had another passion: he loved to fly. He had already flown with the Air Training Corps at school, and with the university flying club. Inevitably, he was called up for National Service. He had an option, though. He could go to Canada and enlist with the Royal Canadian Air Force for five years. Much to his patients’ surprise, he dropped his medical career, and headed out to the flight training school in Centralia, Ontario! Just how much fishing the
“Tayside” saw in the ensuing years is hard to tell. Ron’s father may have fished around Centralia, or later, Gimli, Manitoba. Gimli was an old airbase, reopened as a flight training centre as Canada became drawn into the Cold War. It was there the
continued on page 46
BUILT FOR LIFE
1915 Scotch Corners Rd. Mississippi Mills (Carleton Place), Ont.
www.bounder.ca
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Tel: 613.253.0437
info@dockmaster.ca
BOUNDER MAGAZINE 39
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