Good afternoon all
Its a rather chilly Sunday for being near the middle of May and some of the weather in the last week was pretty misleading with glorious sunshine but cold winds.
This cold spell has meant that the sensitive plants have had to remain under cover in the greenhouse, with my tomoato plants wearing sleeping bags at night, hopefully we will see an end to the chilly side of the weather soon.
That being said there is a lovely freshness setting in when you are out and about, the lush green foliage on trees making walks in the wood more shaded, spring crops bursting through in the fields and I see that farmers are currently out planting tatties, still a bit early for carrots.
The Board have had another busy week out on the river and in front of the cameras. Duncan Ferguson has been speaking to the media about last weeks pollution incident and the coverage of this has certainly been seen all over the national press, we can only but hope that this intertest develops into futher steps being taken to protect the iconic Atlantic Salmon. The Board staff will be conducting more surveys this week coming to develop a plan to start the recovery of the affected area. Ongoing discussions are currently being held with Industry and Regulators about the pollution.
Following the very successful launch of the new range of Trak rods by Loop, another Trak rod of the winners choice is up for grabs for the the winner. These rods are phenomenally priced and it is testament to a tackle manufacturer like Loop to be able to produce very good quality tackle as such an affordable price.
Lets head down the river to see what has been happeniing.
Abernethy got a coupel of fish this week, whilst Grantown had three, the biggest of which was 11lbs.
At Castle Grant, Simon Crozier reports that it was a week of changeable wind and weather and falling water saw things quiet the first half of the week with only a few brief encounters to report.
Thursday saw things improve with 3 fish caught.
Mark Wooldridge and Chris Davies with fish of 7 and 8lb respectively from Polchraine.
Jamie Jones had a cracking deep 10lb fish from No 1 burn.
Apart from a few fish played and lost that was it untill a last gasp fish of 9lbs from Greenbank , caught at 9:45 and with an air temp of 2 degrees !
Thats shows how fickle salmon can be.
At Knockando, Archie Baillie confirms that it was, similar to Castle Grant, a difficult week for us last week with a difficult wind and bright sunshine. But we stuck at it and although we wern’t seeing many fish we managed to pick up a nice very welcome10lb fish from Craigsteele on Friday morning. Hopefully nxt week will be more productive for us.
My next stop is to see Neil Borthwick at Carron who advises that they welcomed James Chalmers & friends back to Carron this week. James has fished Carron for almost 35 years now so there’s not an inch of water that the party don’t know & it showed first thing on Monday morning when Ian Hall (80 years young) got us off to a great start with a lovely fresh fish out of Midcast.
Low & cold water made for challenging conditions this week so it would be Thursday before we had any further action when Øystein Hveding landed our first sea-trout of the season in Carron Pool. Øystein would follow this up with a salmon from McGregors on Friday evening after losing one 5 minutes prior.
Sadly nothing else was added to our total on Saturday but we did start to see fish moving through the beat which gives everyone encouragement for the coming weeks.
Continuing this weeks journey, my next stop is Kinermony where David Brand advises that they only managed one fish this week Nonni Doddi all the way from Iceland caught it.
Things are quiet until I reach Easter Elchies where Orn Sigurhansson reports a week of cooler weather and some big spring salmon. We were very pleased to welcome the Burgess-Lumsden fishing party again this week to Easter Elchies. A really fun week, with a notable highlight – Isla Gordon landing her first salmon, a cracking 12lb springer from Fiddich Mouth. Some good sport all week, including a couple of cracking springers landed, first Bertie Burgess-Lumsden with a 15lb fish, then Jamie Burgess-Lumsden a notch more with a 16lb fish – superb fish. Top rod of the week, Patrick Fotheringham, with 3 salmon. Water level today, -6 on the gauge. More cooler weather forecast for next week. Total 7 salmon and a really good sea trout for the week – a good return in the conditions.
Down to Arndilly where Euan Reid was delighted to report that it was a remarkable week at Arndilly. The previous week our Icelandic friends worked hard to get 3 fish, so we came into Monday with limited expectations, but what didn’t happen last week, did happen this week. The fish arrived. Tom Caswell had 3 on Monday. On Tuesday and Wednesday we had 6 and 7 repectively but it slowed a bit later in the week but we couldn’t expect it to continue at that rate!
Tom Caswell finished the week with 5, George Cheer had 3 and Sam Elkington, Simon Caswell, Brian Lovering,Tom Cheer and Tim Curtis had 2 each. Tim had one of those fish you remember because of the shape of it, a wonderful specimen of 15lb from the Bulwark in front of an audience, ably netted by Mike.
Two of our rods had one apeice but there is a story with both. Our party leader James Cheer hooked a fish in Gilmour which hadn’t read the rulebook, and after an entertaining skirmish we ended up landing it in the top of Cobble Pot. Those that know the Beat know that’s a mission, but we successfully netted a lovely 13lb fish.
Probably the most celebrated fish for us was caught on Saturday morning. Jo Cheer, who doesn’t fish very often was learning a left hand single Spey cast on the concrete path when she hooked a fish. Watched by quite a crowd, Jo landed her first ever fly caught Salmon, having had a fish on the spinner 30yrs ago, and our biggest of the week, 15.5lb.
On Saturday night after dinner, George and Tom Cheer went down to the concrete path with a sea trout rod and a #12 silver stoat with the hope of a sea trout. George had a 9.5lb salmon and Tom caught a real specimen 9lb sea trout! What an end to a very special week.
Rothes and Aikenway is my next port of call to see Robbie Stronach to see how their week finished up. Robbie advised that they ended up with 9 fish for the week Mike Cuthbert got one in Geantree, Mike Darrell got one in Creeky, Ali Cuthbert got one in Burnmouth and David Harvey was top rod with one from Junction and three from Geantree. Other successful rods were Andrew Hamilton with one from Geantree and Rory Landman got one from Town Road.
Continuing down river, Mark Melville at Delfur is my next stopping off point. Mark reports that when they started to see fresh fish showing in a few of our pools in the morning ,we thought it was just a matter of time!
It was not to be until an early evening fish for team leader Richard Potter from the tail of Sourden.
The fish had other ideas and were bombing through to pastures new upstream.
Tuesday was blank with a couple lost.
Wednesday Richard Potter showed how to do it again with two crackers of 19lbs and 13lbs from the roadside of Broom. A fish was lost here at the net in the morning.
The pattern of losing fish continued for most days and is always a sure sign of running fish.
Thursday evening William Potter landed a nice fish in Sourden and decided to join the said fish underwater for a second or two. Both fish and guest went away safe and well!
Friday was our best day with a few fish landed.
Richard Potter again with fish from the Bridge pool and Beaufort.
James Potter landed a Bonnie fish in Big Haddie.
Saturday had us losing another from Broom, all in all a good week but could have been so much better if a few more fish had stayed on.
Andy Gunn at Orton is next to give me his weekly update and he advises that they enjoyed a productive week, with several visiting anglers landing quality fish across the beat.
Regular angler Tim Clarke got things started on Monday with an older fish of around 7lb from Cairnty.
On Tuesday, local angler Shane Fraser, fishing Orton for the first time, lost a fish in the Junction before later landing a superb 15lb salmon.
Wednesday saw another Orton first-timer, Jon McQuade, hook into a 9lb fish from Cooperee on only his second cast. He rounded off his visit in style by landing another lovely fish of around 7lb from Greenbank on his final cast.
The second half of the week brought a fresh group of visiting anglers, with one further fish landed — an 8lb sea-liced salmon from the Junction by George Morris.
My final stopping off point is Gordon Castle/Brae water where Lewis Webb advises that the first week of May arrived right on cue with the annual appearance of the mayflies over the Bank Holiday weekend. It proved to be another productive week across all of the beats, as we welcomed guests from around the globe in search of the prized Spey springer.
Our Italian friends from “The Speyband” enjoyed an especially exciting week, splitting their time between fishing here and another beat further upstream. Alongside returning regulars and several new faces, catches pushed comfortably into the twenties by week’s end. The average stamp of fish was 10–12lb, with the largest landed fish weighing in at 18lb.
Although catches remained steady throughout the week, it was somewhat surprising how few fish were showing in the pools. Still, seeing them in the net rather than on the surface is never a bad problem to have.
We also encountered some exceptionally large brown trout, with fish up to 7lb landed during the week. Clearly feeding well on smolts, these trout are not reaching that size on midges alone. It is encouraging to see the smolts holding and feeding strongly in the pools before beginning their onward migration.
The next two weeks are relatively quiet for us on the river with a couple of last minute cancellations meaning we have rods available.
Well that was some week with a considerable lift in the average size of fish being caught. It is intwertesting to see that the majority of fish were into or well into double figures and I am sure they would have all given a good account of themselves.
I am delighted to advise that this weeks winner of the Loop Trak rod of thier choice is Isla Gordon for her first wevre salmon, well Done Isla and I will be intouch shortly about your prize.
Next week looks like another mixed week with hopefully a wee bit of rain in the forecast so we can only but hope that the relatively good start to the season continues.
I am having a week off next week, well not really as I will be tying flies in the River Spey Anglers Association tent at the Gordon Castle Highland Games, so feel free to pop in and speak to myself, David Mateer and Allan Liddle about anything flytying related,
Tight lines
Sandy
