Pete Smith is ‘Green Highlander’ – a fishing tutor based in Strathglass who takes people to some of Affric Highlands’ most beautiful lochs and rivers. His trips focus on helping people connect to, and better understand, the landscape and its wildlife.
Affric Highlands’ riverwoods projects, which involve restoring woodland to river banks and headwaters, will significantly help the area’s freshwater biodiversity, encouraging a greater abundance of invertebrates, fish and birdlife.
An Affric Highlands ‘early adopter’ featured in our new film, we spoke to Pete about how rewilding the area’s rivers will support his business to flourish.
What is your connection to the Affric Highlands landscape?
I chose to live within Affric Highlands rather than being born into it. I wanted to live quietly in a beautiful and interesting place with lots of wildlife – and through serendipity, I found my opportunity here in Strathglass.
As a keen angler, I saw an opportunity to start a fishing guiding business and three years ago I set up Green Highlander. This gets me out on the water with new folks all summer and autumn – and many days in between.
Living here I have seen or heard almost every animal and bird native to Scotland. My house in Aigas is surrounded by forest and I have been fortunate to get involved with developing it as a community-run social enterprise. My lifelong love for trees has grown with the seeds I collect and saplings I plant here. The woodland supports the local community through the development of forestry skills, and also acts as an amazing outdoor venue for nature education for local schools.
Tell us more about Green Highlander.
There is an old tradition for anglers to use a local ghillie to help them when they fish, especially if the water is new to them. The ghillie might give tips on where the fish lie, row the boat and help land any catches. But they don’t generally provide tuition or tackle.
Green Highlander is all the best parts of the traditional ghillie experience – and more. I like to make the day about learning and having fun; an experience the guests will remember and tell their friends about.
We visit remote and beautiful lochs and rivers, and we leave them as we found them. Guests may want to take home a trout to eat or a few mushrooms – but it’s a sustainable harvest.
Green Highlander is the name of an old traditional salmon fly, but also reflects my nature-positive approach to business.
How will Affric Highlands benefit your livelihood?
Visitors to Affric Highlands are looking for activities that draw them into the landscape and share its hidden wonders . A day learning to fly fish on a Highland loch or river ticks all the boxes. We regularly take out local people too, from retirees to young folk, looking to experience their homeplace through a new lens.
As the Affric Highlands initiative grows, so will my business and I hope to bring in and train local people to help with that.
Furthermore, by creating ‘riverwoods’ in upland headwaters, my hope is to see a richer ecosystem capable of sustaining more fish, as well as a more balanced and vibrant landscape.
What does rewilding mean to you?
Rewilding to me is about giving nature the chance to balance itself. That doesn’t mean human exclusion or a hands-off approach; we have centuries of damage to repair, which needs some help to get going.
It all starts with the soil and enabling more woodland to grow. That will help stabilise the land and kick-start the return of a more vibrant ecosystem.
Tell us about your favourite place to spend time in nature in Affric Highlands.
Although I love the scale and majesty of Glen Affric, I think I prefer the intimacy of Glen Strathfarrar and Glen Cannich. All three glens, however, have the scope to be places where wildlife flourishes and people can sustain diverse livelihoods.
Tell us about another business operating in Affric Highlands that you admire.
On the river I often come across Adventure Highland who take guests out canoeing. We co-exist perfectly well and a day of paddling is nicely offset by a quieter day casting a fly.
Affric Highlands is made possible through generous funding from Rewilding Europe, Scottish Power Foundation, NatureScot – Nature Restoration Fund, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, FedEx Foundation, British Science Association, Halleria Trust, Mazars Charitable Trust, Support in Mind Scotland, and Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust.
