Good afternoon all
Its a lovely afternoon here in Elgin, not too worm but at least it is dry for the masses who are attending the last ever MacMoray Festival in Cooper Park- its been a great weekend for it, with Status Quo closing the festival tonight.
Another mixed week of weather has been and gone, warm, wet (Monday was some afternoon of rain) and at times a tad breezy. All to test the mettle of those out on the water.
The harvest has started around Elgin with the first field of Oilseed Rape been harvested, everything else seems to be ripening well but there are flat areas forming in some of the barley fields due to the rain, which become a magnet for the crows and pigeons a they devour the grain. I was coming home last evening from Dingwall and on the outskirts of Forres, a recently harvested filed of barley was being hoovered by a huge number of geese, obviously finding the grain that went through the combine instead of into the tank. They always take advantage of the free meal!!
Ok lets see how the beats fared this week.
Fochabers Angling Association finished with at least 4 salmon and 16 grilse caught this week advises Andy Milne. The big plus being that the seal hasn’t been spotted again. We can only live in hope it stays out at sea.
Our next port of call is Gordon Castle and Brae Water where Lewis Webb reports that they managed into the 60’s this week with a good spread of fish across the beats, Friday and Saturday’s wind provided a challenge and with plenty of fish in the pools left one guest stating he felt like he’d be “piscatorially bullied”… not a bad complaint to have! Some first fish and also some great summer salmon with the biggest being 23lb.
Up at Orton Andy Gunn reports another fantastic week at Orton hosted by Donna and John Faith. The week started off a little quiet with just a few fresh fish on Monday followed by a blank on Tuesday due to a dirty river.
Thereafter fishing was at times electric due to the fresh water.
I was encouraged to see so many sea liced fish and just hope they will continue to arrive for few more weeks.
We hit the high thirties plus a couple of cracking sea trout. There was a noticeable number of finnock about causing many false alarms during the course of the week. While I won’t mention everyone in the party noticeable catches included a first salmon for Antonia Allan. Russell Whiteman had some fabulous fish plus a beautiful 5 pound sea trout from the The Willows.
Not to be outdone, his wife Karine also landed a number of beautiful fish including 3 on Saturday from the Turn and Junction.
Jake Eastham had 3 including a lovely 12 pounder.
Cairnty fished well throughout the week with a lot of fish passing through on Wednesday evening and on Thursday when one lucky angler, David Dobbs, had 9 on Thursday plus many others hook ups.
Ben Crozier and his wife Lindi had fresh fish. Lindi, however, spent more of her time painting, what an incredible artist.
The generous host, John, appropriately ended proceedings on Saturday evening with a lovely 10 pounder from Cooperee.
We look forward to their visit next year and hope the week coming will be as productive.
Its good to see that “wee” drop of rain that fell at the start of the week helped to freshen things up and certainly reading the first reports the grilse are still coming in.
My next stop is with Mark Melville at Delfur who advises another good week again finishing just short of 40. Mostly grilse this week with some nice fish landed too. All the pools producing which is always nice to see. We fished away steadily all week with four first fish caught.
Rothes and Aikenway head ghillie, Robbie Stronach reports that they ended up with 11 for the week . Don Mackenzie got 3 fish on Monday with 2 from Jamieson and 1 from Bluestone. Rob Hall-Jones caught the only fish on Tuesday with one from Creeky. Don Mackenzie got 2 fish on Wednesday with 1 from Town Road and also Creeky . It was just a single fish to Rob Hall-Jones on Thursday from Junction . Friday saw three fish in the book, with Ed shooter landing 2 fish with 1 from Geantree and also Town road, don mackenzie was the other captor with one from Junction . Saturday saw a very quiet end to the week with nothing landed.
As we carry on up the river my next dropping off point is Arndilly with Euan Reid who advises that yet another great week has passed, this week with David Plumpton and his team of long-term tenants. David and his team have found a way that works for them and is productive. They fish the mornings and take it a little bit more relaxed in the afternoons, although they fish the important bits but leave energy for the evening between 8-8.30 and dark which can be very productive.
Everyone caught fish this week with David Plumpton, John Reeves, and Roly Dangerfield, our top scorers with 10, 9, and 8, respectively.
Father and son Olly and Dick Bastian shared 8 fish evenly, and David Saunders, 82 years young, had a few, including 3 in a day, 2 of which came from Gilmour. Jack Meredith had a couple early in the week, and then the salmon gods took a dislike to him when everyone else was catching. In proper showman style, Jack left it to about the last cast on Saturday evening and caught out biggest of the week, 15lb+.
It was a wonderful week amongst old friends, and lovely seeing smiles on faces.
Up round the corner at Easter Elchies, Orn Sigurhansson reports a week of low water and fresh grilse running. It was our pleasure to welcome again the James fishing party to Easter Elchies. We very much enjoy David and his guests company. Water height -6 on the gauge so water is now hovering below summer level, 62 water temperature. Overhead conditions becoming challenging with the wind towards the end of the week. Some really good highlights this week, including Merchiston Castle FP John Whyte landing his first salmon from Inverfiddich and a cracking 9lb fish landed on a hitch fly. A dozen salmon and grilse landed, a most enjoyable August week on Speyside.
Aberlour Angling Club saw three grilse landed during the week with one to Jim Seivright, one to Gerry Welsh and one to a visting angler.
Across the water at Wester Elchies, Malcolm Newbould advises that the beat saw eight fish landed but as he was away fishing himself we have no further details.
Up the river a wee bit both Kinermony and Delagyle finished with a solitary fish each, the successful rods being Robert Lamont (Kinermony) and Patrick Gardiner (Delagyle)
Max Mckinstrie at Laggan reports that they hit double figures for the week, with 11 fish added to the years tally.
My next stopping off point on this weeks journey is Knockando Home Beat where Archie Baillie confirms 11 salmon to 16lb, 4 grilse and 3 sea trout biggest at 5lb landed during the week. Mrs Asa Thompson and her son Frank who is 13 years old both caught their first ever salmon. Unfortunately for young Frank, his fish decided to head back into the river at speed before the shutter on the camera could click. Well done to Frank on his success.
As we near the end of our journey for the week I arrive at Castle Grant where Simon Crozier reports a quieter week at Castle Grant. The beats were lightly fished and the catches reflected this. However some fine fish were caught across the beats . A mixture of older fish and some fine fresh grilse made up the catch, it is fine to see clean fish still running into our beats somewhat of a rare occurrence these last few seasons. We hope for more fish pushing through next week and with fish now showing in all the pools some sport to come.
Our penultimate stop off is at the Grantown water where they finished with 2 salmon and finally Abernethy who added 2 salmon and 5 seatrout to their tally. Many thanks to Simon for obtaining this information.
I think it i fair to say that we are all delighted to see that there are still fresh fish pushing their way up the river at this point in the season and the number of grilse is pleasing. We cannot, of course take this for granted and take our foot off the gas with regards to the protection of our iconic species. We all need to look after the salmon be that by careful handing, use of suitable equipment and last but by no means least stop dispatching fish even if people feel it is a right to do so. To carry on killing fish means the possibility of nothing to fish for in future years arrives on our horizons even quicker and this is something we need to delay.
The week ahead looks to be mixed with some rain early on in the week but drier weather as the week progresses.
Tight lines to those out and about
Sandy
