It’s no secret that the Royal Family have many underlings to make life easier – but it may come as a surprise that the King even has little helpers when it comes to a particular sport: fishing.
Charles has become skilled at fly fishing and even caught a salmon on the River Spey in Scotland this summer.
‘That is no meagre feat,’ says a gillie. ‘It’s hard to catch a salmon at the best of times.’
But it is never easy, even for a fine fisherman. And The Mail on Sunday can reveal he has turned to a secret weapon: his security team, and their telescopic sights, which would normally be scanning for would-be assassins.
While fishing at Delphi Lodge in Connemara in Ireland – a retreat legendary for Atlantic salmon and sea trout fishing – the King was surrounded by a ‘two-mile radius of security’, who were locating pools of salmon in the river, explains a former staffer.
‘There were security personnel in the trees around the pools in which he was fishing,’ says the source.
‘The security had a clear view of the fish from their spot, and also had military grade snipers [rifles] with polarised lenses which made spotting the fish easier.’
The security personnel used their weapons’ telescopic sights to find where the fish were. Our source reveals that the King’s security were ‘whispering’ instructions in his earpiece while he prepared to cast his rod.
King Charles is seen fly fishing near Balmoral in 1984. It has been revealed that he recently enlisted the telescopic sights on his security guards’ rifles to help him locate salmon during a fishing trip to Ireland
Charles has become skilled at fly fishing and even caught a salmon on the River Spey (pictured) in Scotland this summer
‘This made it much easier for him because knowing where the fish are is half the hard bit, known as “reading the river”,’ continues our fishing insider.
Apart from utilising snipers to spot salmon, the King is traditional when he fishes, using a split cane rod and only practising overhead casts – when one moves the rod in a direct, vertical path over the shoulder.
He is a ‘well-accomplished fisherman’, adds another expert. ‘He knows what he’s doing and has fished some brilliant rivers. I suppose that is the perk of being a royal.’
The then Prince Charles first visited Delphi Lodge in 1995. As well as fishing for salmon in the Bundorragha River and the Finn Lough, he painted vivid landscapes of the idyllic valley, located in the west of Ireland.