Robin Sieger Blog

During my summer vacation. I went to a farmhouse in the north west of Scotland near a place called Loch Carron, you can look it up in Google Earth – very remote. A picnic was organised up in the mountains by a loch (which is a Scottish word for lake).

Some of the party had taken their fly fishing rods as there were brown trout in it. The obvious question, is how did the brown trout find their way into a loch 2000 feet above sea level into which no stream or river flows to the sea, either?

The puzzle, is no puzzle really, about 150 years ago they were introduced to these small lochs by some landowners to introduce some sport for their guests.

So out in a small boat we went and a few trout were caught. I was surprised how small they all were. I had been told that the small ones we keep, any big ones we were to throw back. It turns out that as the loch became overpopulated the resources for the fish became more scarce, and the size of the fish declined accordingly.

In some ways it can be like the market place, as competition increases, the margins fall, competition increases and the whole system becomes overburdened.

The fishing trip made me realize that unlike the fish we are not trapped by the physical limitation of the small loch in the mountain, and yet irrespective of the limited business situation or indeed life situation we find ourselves in we rarely change it.

It is for all its insecurities a place that feels safe due to its familiarity, and it is what we know, and that is the trap that makes us think we should stick with it, when in reality we should go in search of another wee loch to fish.

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