Good afternoon all
Well this is it, this is your final instalment from the Spey 2026 season and the final sample of my drivel for the year.
I will strat firstly by thanking the ghillies, the owners and indeed beat contacts who have given up their time on a Saturday evening/Sunday to rgive me thier weekley updates. I am sure it is time consuming from your pouint of view as you ingather photos for fish caught etc. It is veyr much appreciated by me, the Board and those who read the weekly report be they from a fishing background or not.
My second thank you is to Sam Jarman who ably steps in to fill the void for a few Sundays when I am committed elsewhere, his help is very much appreciated throughout the season.
My final thankyou is to you the readers who get my drivel each Sunday either by the mailing list or the posts that I sahre on my own Facebook page and that of Loop.
Talking of Loop I musyt extend a grateful thanks to Jim, Fredrik and Andreas at Loop for thier help each week in sending out the prizes to the winners. thier speedy re[psponse to my notifications is appreciated not just by me but by the winners too.
That brings me on to the final weekly report prize from Loop and this week it is the Strom rod. The Strom is based on the same technology of the legendary 7X which makes it and tremendous piece of kit. The winner can pick the model of their choice.
Autumn is definitely here, with night time temperatures falling away and more damp weather about. That being said those lving in the south of the UK are still seeing tempertaures in the mid 20’s but am sure they would welcome a right dollop of rain.
A couple of things from the Board firstly a reminder to all ghillies of the end of season BBQ, 1-3pm Thu 1 October at the Easter Elchies fishing hut, accessed via Dandaleith Farm, AB38 9RT. Looks like it is going to be a great turn out. All ghillies welcome to join the Spey Board team for a burger and dram of Inverspey whisky. Please contact Duncan if you are attending.
Secondly you may well have seen on Social Media some information about the Spey and the abstraction of its waters. I have piched the following narrative from Ken Reid’s post on the Salmon Fishing Club page- I am sure he will not mind.
“At a time when the River Spey desperately needs water, enormous volumes from its upper catchment are being sent out of the Spey altogether.
And we know where it goes.
Water from the Tromie and Truim catchments is diverted south into Loch Ericht, through the Tummel hydro system and ultimately into the Tay.
Water captured at Spey Dam is diverted west into Loch Laggan and ultimately used to generate electricity for the aluminium smelter at Fort William, before eventually reaching Loch Linnhe. (One of the wettest places in Scotland)
Meanwhile the hallowed River Spey runs low as its water supplies are hollowed out.
This isn’t some small insignificant abstraction.
The Spey Fishery Board’s own Release the Spey campaign reported that 91% of all water abstracted from the Spey was accounted for by these two schemes.
It estimated that the diversions could reduce the Spey’s natural flow by as much as 61% at Kingussie and 24% as far downstream as Boat o’ Brig near Fochabers.
Read that again. Scandalous at a time of climate change warming and droughts.
Water belonging naturally to the Spey catchment is being diverted towards the Tay and Fort William while one of Scotland’s greatest salmon rivers is crying out for water.
These arrangements date back generations. But the climate has changed. The salmon population has changed. Atlantic salmon are now classified as Endangered in Great Britain.
So why are we still managing the Spey’s water as though nothing has changed?
We hear endless talk about restoring habitat, resilience, biodiversity and saving wild salmon.
Yet perhaps the most fundamental ingredient of a functioning river is being removed from it:
WATER.
The Spey Fishery Board has already described the Spey as one of Scotland’s most heavily abstracted major rivers, with more than 90% of the water permitted to be abstracted or diverted coming from just the upper 13% of the catchment.
So SFC makes no apology for asking the uncomfortable question:
How can Scotland claim to be restoring the River Spey while continuing to export vast quantities of its water to other catchments? Quite simply it can’t.
These videos show why this issue cannot remain hidden behind licences, historic agreements and hydro infrastructure.
Give the Spey its water back.
Because without water there is no river.
Without a functioning river there is no recovery.
And, as we have said repeatedly:
THERE CAN BE NO RESTORATION WITHOUT PROTECTION.”
Here are the two videos
Ok lets see how the last week has gone on the river.
Starting at Gordon Castle/Brae Water where Lewis Webb reports that the fish continue to make us work for the reward, not helped with Wednesdays rise bringing chocolate water and a couple of days with peaty water alongside a wind that would have made anyone with a kite very happy!
On Saturday Kris Laird found the winning formula scoring the hat trick with a few more lost too.
Up to Orton next to see Andy Gunn who advises that the last full week of the season saw us welcome the Wildgoose party back to Orton.
Jonathan Wildgoose got us off the mark on Monday with a fish from the House Pool, with Martin Speed producing another from Greenbank later in the day.
It was Thursday before we had another fish, with Sue Greenhall landing one from Cairnty.
A cooler start to Saturday morning helped bring two fish to the net, with Jo Tear landing one from the Turn and Will Harrison another from the House Pool.
A great way to round off the final full week of the season.
At Rothes and Aikenway, Robbie Stronach reports that thye finished the last full week with 2 fish in the book. The lucky rods being Mark Lake and mr S Bladon both of whom landed fish in Geantree.
Arndilly and Euan Reid is my next port of call who reports on a poignant week for the beat. Euan comments “The closed season rapidly approaches us yet again on what has been a difficult year in terms of fish numbers. The low water certainly hasn’t helped and that makes this week more disappointing as we finally did get a decent amount of water, 3ft5 on our guage and yet it didn’t boost our catches in the way that we hoped it would.
We had to wait until Thursday to get our first fish, 15lb from back of the bog for John Elgar followed by an 8lb fish for Mark Jones and a grilse for Edward Shaw, both from the top half of the long pool.
Edward had a 14lb fish first thing on Friday morning which we hoped would be the first of many but it turned out to be the only pull of the day!
John Elgar finished the week with a 9.5lb fish from the soo.
It is a time of change at Arndilly as this season is Keith McLaren’s last season on the beat as he moves into retirement. Keith has been at Arndilly for 35 years but on certain bits of our stretch (due to a change in ownership) for 52 years.
Every Saturday this season has been a moment of farewell between Keith and the many friends he has made in his time on the water. We all wish him a long and happy retirement and we know his name will be brought up in bankside conversations for many years to come”
Having know Keith for a couple of years now, I am sure he will be solely missed by all the guests he has got to know and netted fish for over the years so a long and happy retirement from all of us.
At Easter Elchies, Ben Grundie reports a week of a welcome rise in water and fish landed. We were very pleased to welcome a mixture of fishing parties this week to Easter Elchies, including the Fotheringham and Thomson parties, and always pleased to see Ian Gordon at Easter Elchies. Final total of 12 salmon for the week, including Mark Morrison in the Saturday night dark, at the tail of Fiddich.
Things are quiet on the river above here, which is no surprise as we see the usual trend of the fish switching off, until we reach Delagyle where David Smillie reports that they finished with two this week for the Hood party, 10lbs to head of the party Colin out of Gean tree and a 13 lbs to Robbie Morgan out of the Willows.
At Knockando Archie Baillie reports that they added 3 salmon to 12lb and 4 sea trout biggest 3lb to the years tally. Plenty of activity before and after the rise but not to keen on taking a fly.
At Lower Pitchroy, Andrew Hall reports that this week at Lower Pitchroy we welcomed back Rab Galbraith for the first part of the week and Thomas Wills the second half. The weeks fishing was very disappointing considering the lift in water on Wednesday but we managed to scrape a couple of fish to write in the book.
A sad end to a season but there’s plenty to reflect on. Lots of great memories made, some real highs along with some lows. But overall the season was an enjoyable one despite its difficulties.
My final report comes from Simon Crozier at Castle Grant who advises that it was a better week than last but still not the level of sport we had expected given the rise of water midweek and the excellent conditions the tail end of the week .
Some sport was had however with both salmon and some good seatrout being caught across the beats.
Thursday was the best day with 6 salmon and a good few seatrout coming to hand .
Catches were sporadic after that .
We look forward to the last 3 days of the season woth hopefully a few fish to boot.
Grantown finished their week with 5 salmon and 11 seatrout Abernethy had 2 salmon and 3 seatrout .
Kinchurdy had a decent week with the water seeming to bring in some salmon and kindle up the seatrout.
My final duty in this the last report is to annouce the winner of this week prize and it goes to Kris Laird for a hatrick on Saturday- I will be in touch shortly about your prize.
Well I will round off the season there, have a goood close season, thanks again for reading the weekly ramblings and with a fair wind and Board confirmation I will speak to you again in February.
Tight lines as always
Sandy
