Afternoon everyone
Can someone please slow the weeks down, they are passing for too quick!!
It is not too bad a day here in Elgin, sun has been out and the temperature is not too bad. It has been a bit of a mixed week on the weather front with some heavy rain and high tempertures. It is not doing the garden much harm but what I have seen this year is exponential growth in plants, compared with previous years and it is probably down to the mix of warm and wet conditions we are experiencing this year compared to the baking hot temperatures of last summer.
I was away during the week and I am sure I saw fields in between Perth and Edinburgh whilst on the motorway that have already had the barley harvested, certainly nothing in the Moray area has reached that point in time that I have noticed, although the greens are starting to turn yellow as the ripening process has begun.
Looking at the week gone past and to activities by the Board, you may have noticed that some sampling done in the Green Burn, a tributary of the Spey has shown a considerable increase in the fry at the site. This may be due to the strategic decision made last year to stock out unfed fry instead of eyed ova but the increase, 900% is welcome news.
Now its time to see how the beats have fared on the river this week.
We will head up the river this week with our first port of call being with Andy Milne of Fochabers Angling Association who reports that the week started well with 6 fish landed on Monday, 3 for Andy Goodenough, Tony Smith had 2 & Nigel Downs had one. This was followed up by 2 fish on Tuesday morning before the river rose rapidly. Wednesday the water was dark and dirty. Tony had two grilse on Thursday and the visiting anglers had 4 between them on Friday and Saturday.
Up at Gordon Castle and Brae Water, Lewis Webb advises that it was amazing week of fishing finishing comfortably in the 80’s with mainly salmon caught. It’s great to see such quality fish and in good quantity, with some first fish too which is always great to see newcomers to the sport getting “hooked”. A relatively consistent week of catches with Wednesdays rise and dirty water the only thing slowing things down. It is so good to see a lot of first fish being caught on the water this week.
Next on our Journey is Orton where Andy Gunn advises a good week here on Orton with 2 regular parties sharing and catches into the 30’s.
The Randall party youngsters showing the adults the way with George Randall, Frazer Morris, Ollie and Barney Matthews all landing Grilse.
Matt Randall, Phillip Matthews , Clive and Jemima Roberts all caught multiple number with Clive landing 13lb fish in both Willows and Wee Pool.
The Everard team consisting of Mark Everard, Clive Baker, Simon Samson, Jonny Martin Smith & Nick Duthie all produced the goods.
Plenty of Grilse around and dropping as many fish as we are landing.
Great to see the grilse about in reasonable numbers and as always they are more adept at getting off a hook that the bigger fish!!!
Mark Melville at Delfur reports another good second week here for Mr Nicky Mountain with his family and friends.
We finished in the thirties with some more quality salmon and grilse.
The river did its usual rise early in the week before falling away as the week progressed.
We now have another dirty rise this morning after heavy rain last night hit the whole system. It should be fine for tomorrow as it settles and clears.
We saw plenty of fish and grilse moving throughout the beat most days.
Good to hear to some great catches up and down the river.
Continuing our journey up river my next visit is to Rothes and Aikenway where head ghillie Robbie Stronach confirms that they ended up with 18 for the week .
The week got off to a good start on Monday with 7 landed Giles Deletbiniere landed one in geantree, Christopher Morley also had one in Geantree, Angus Ross caught his first fish in Burnmouth, Charlie Harmen landed one in creeky, Tim Ross landed two, one in Jamieson and one in Junction and Christopher Morley had one in town road .
Tuesday saw another three fish in the book with Giles deletbiniere on the scorecard again withv one in Burnmouth, Tim Ross got one in Creeky and Christopher Morley got one in Junction.
Wednesday produced two Christopher Morley with one from Town road and Giles Deletbiniere scoring again with one from Burnmouth. Thursday was quieter with Robert Chambers tempting one in Creeky.
Friday was also a single fish day with David Harvey landing one in Creeky .
Saturday finishd of with four to the tally, James Hopkins got one in Creeky , David Harvey got one in Jamieson and also Junction and Robert chambers got one in Carnegie. Another good week at Rothes with Creeky being the hot spot again.
At Arndilly Euan Reid gets a rest from writing this weeks report as it comes from the party host from the week, David Wood. David writes that they had a lovely week at Arndilly with the Spey having water along with a drop or two extra on Sunday and Tuesday.
Evelyn Wood (13) and Charles Wood (11) each caught their first ever Salmon and both also caught another for good measure. Charles’ first fish, a 4 1/2 pound grilse from the Long Pool was caught on a fly of his own tying now proudly named“the Tominachty Blue”. Anna Garnett (17) had her first experience of fishing a larger river and Spey Casting, catching a very well-deserved four salmon. Monty Channing (11) who caught his first salmon at Arndilly 2 years ago lost a fish or two before landing a grilse on Saturday morning. All four of the children were shown how to release fish carefully whilst having a photo taken in accordance with the new Spey Board guidelines.
The fish were mostly fresh grilse of 3-5 pounds with a few summer salmon of up to 18 1/2 pounds for good measure.
Other successful rods were Euan Reid, Sam and Jill Elkington, Tim Curtis, Simon and Sally Channing, James England, James Cheer and Tom Cheer.
As a party, we cannot thank the full time ghillies, Keith, Euan and Blair and the part time ghillies, Graham Nichols and Alec Robertson enough for their patience, encouragement and tuition of the children as well as for their hard work and commitment to the river and its salmon and other wildlife.
The beat looks superb as always and it is an incredible privilege to fish at Arndilly and spend time in the company of some of the greats of the ghillieing world. Many thanks also to the Hollingbery family for their commitment to, encouragement and support of children fishing, which is so important for the future of our sport.
It is so nice to get the views of the party host around their experiences on the river and the wider community and if any other party hosts wish to do the same then please feel free to let the ghillie(s) know and they will get your narrative to me.
I am also delighted to see so many youngsters getting in on the action this week, they are our life blood for the sport and every encouragement should be shown to them to get them hooked as they say.
As we continue our upstream passage at Easter Elchies, Orn Sigurhansson reports a steady week. We were pleased to welcome the Brodie fishing party to Easter Elchies this week. Water level started the week at 3 inches with a rise to 11 inches on Wednesday. Welcome rain last night lifting water level to 18 inches today. 20 salmon and grilse for the week plus a few sea trout. A really enjoyable week.
Dougie Ross at Craigellachie advises of another steady week for them with both salmon and grilse landed over the period and Dougie, like all the other ghillies is hoping for the trend to continue into the week ahead.
Up at Aberlour Angling club, Kenny Davies reports a three fish week for the club.
Across the water at Wester Elchies, Malcolm Newbould reports that 4 fish were landed with twice as many lost. Jane Baker ought to give them all lessons, hooked 2 landed 2. Well done to Jane for showing the others how its done.
Next stop is Kinermony where David Brand advises that they managed to land 5 grilse this week, two of them with red vent, first we have had this year. The top rod being Francis Cotter with three to his rod.
David Smillie at Delagyle reports a quieter week for them with just a single salmon of 12lbs to Philip De Pass and a solitary seatrout to LA Smillie.
Continuing the journey my next stop is Laggan where Mac Mckinstrie reports that they added a mix of 9 salmon and grilse to their season tally.
Across at Carron, Ian Borthwick reports that they finished with 14 salmon and grilse for their week, with the highlight being Ian’s grandson Ellis landing his first ever salmon. Well done Ellis something I hope you remember for the rest of your fishing life.
Archie Baillie up at Knockando’s Home beat advises that although the beat was lightly fished this week, they ended up having a good week. The catch was predominantly grilse in the 3-5lb bracket, 4 nice salmon to 12lb and a single seatrout of 2lbs.
As we head towards the end of our journey for the week the final few beats that report in via Simon Crozier have put the following scores on the doors.
At Castle Grant week of mixed weather and mixed fortunes saw blank days and days of plenty as pods of grilse and some cracking summer salmon pushed through our beats. Monday and Tuesday, we failed to trouble the scorers , the flash flood on Monday evening didn’t help much butWednesday the water cleared and fell and some grilse arrived! Robert Doig had a fine wee grilse from Dunbar, Humphries and Peter Hickman had a grilse each from Polchraine and Tim Bevan had a grilse from Polchraine. the day finsihed with a cracking lber being landed in the Garra.
Thursday was a day for the salmon to turn up, Ryan Rutherford had 2, one from the March and one from Pollowick and Max Mackinstrie had a 14lb fish from Greenbank while seatrouting! A few more came to hand but the best undoubtedly was a cracking 12lb sealiced fish from Polchraine caught by Tim Bevan a real cracker. The rest of the week saw sporadic action with a few more coming to the net but the good news was that we saw more fish in the pools than we had for some time . We hope for the grilse pods to continue into next week and beyond.
Finally Abernethy finished off with a couple of salmon to 10lbs.
The week ahead looks like it will be a bit mixed on the weather front, with bright sunshine forecast for a couple of days so here’s hoping this does not put the fish off their stride and that have a grab at a fly swinging past their noses.
Tight lines to all
Sandy
