Good afternoon everyone.
Its a dry afternoon here in Elgin following a wet night and some heavier rain earlier this morning, surely it has done some good to freshen things up.
Its is still quite muggy out there despite the rain but the garden, fields and rivers I am sure will see some good of it.
It is easy to see we are in summer as we had to spend the week at work with the doors open, old farm buildings and no air conditioning does not make for a comfortable working environment. The breeze brought lots of insects in to the buildings, mainly small black flies that are prevalent where there are crops going. They also seperated the lambs from their mothers in the filed next to my office and by god did the mothers let everyone know, what a racket!!
Last week gave us tough fishing conditions yet again, lots of sun high temperatures and more time for sunbathing than fishing but I am sure the rods out of the rivers put in the hours, albeit not between the traditional 9-5.
Lets see how things have gone given the week of weather gone by.
Ok lets see how the fishing has been as we go with the flow.
Up at Kinchurdy, angler Kevin Shanks had a good crack at the seatrout with a number caught to 10lbs. Great to see such good quality fish about.
At Knockando, Archie Baillie reports that not much happened with his last week, no surprise with the weather but they finished with 2 grilse and a seatrout
Travelling down from Knockando to Carron where Ian Borthwick reports that they had two fish for the week. One on Monday morning for Richard Meigh, 5lbs out of Mcgregors and a second caught on Saturday morning in Delchapel by Simon Martin 4lbs.
Things were quiet too at Kinermony where David brand reports a single grilse for their week, landed by Steve Smith.
As we cross the river to Wester Elchies, Malcolm Newbould reported that they had a couple fo grilse for their week.
It is interesting that the beats below this seem to be picking away with better numbers and why this section of the river seems to be very quiet is a mystery- the fish are definitely running through here but are they not stopping in the pools? Do they know something that we humans do not? A strange scenario that does not seem to make any sense. we can only wait and see what happens in the second half of the season.
Continuing down the river, Richard Whyte at Macallan advises that it was a quiet week for them but he advises the river has seen a rise following the rain last night/this morning so we will wait and see what happens as a result of the lift.
My next stop off is Easter Elchies where Orn reports a week of more grilse and some welcome rain on Saturday. The week started off where we left off last week, with Donald MacDonald landing a grilse first thing on Monday morning from neck of Fiddich. Billy McLean added another grilse on Monday afternoon. Great to see 2 grilse landed from Lower Dips on Tuesday, both landed by Andy Brodie. Saturday proved to be our best day with 5 landed, all on Saturday evening. John Grandison, Thomas Robertson, Jim Fleming and Les Tyson all on the score sheet on Saturday night – fish landed in Upper Dips, tail of Fiddich and neck of Fiddich. A great end to the week. 12 salmon and grilse for the week, a good return in the conditions.
Down at Arndilly, Euan Reid reports that this week on Arndilly we had David and Kelly Wood and their party within which there is very much a focus on promoting children and newcomers into our sport of salmon fishing on big rivers.
One of the bigger children, James England, got us going on Monday morning with a grilse from the left bank of the Piles, followed by Charles Wood with a 6lb fish from the Cobble Pot having lost one 5 casts earlier.
On Tuesday, young Monty Channing had a grilse, 5lb, Paul Sardison, 3.5lb and David Wood 4.5lb all from the left bank of Cobble Pot.
We had 6 on Wednesday, Adrian Tweedale with his first fly caught salmon of 9lb, James England with 2 and Anna Garnett also with 2, all from Cobble Pot. Kelly Wood had our 6th, a grilse from Back of the Bog.
We had 2 on Friday, Ben Burgess with his first Spey fish, 4lb from Cobble Pot and Sam Elkington had a 7lb fish from the Arns last thing in the afternoon.
I expected to pick something up on Saturday but it wasn’t to be.
We couldn’t find a fish for John Garnett but his granddaughter Anna had a couple, Evelyn Wood lost one through no fault of her own and Charlotte Squires, who is new to salmon fishing finished the week casting very well and the fact she didn’t catch a salmon was not down to her, this game is 90% luck!
On the bright side, we did get the long-awaited rain which raised the river from -9″ to above 0″ with more to come hopefully and will lower the temperature and move fish about the river so hopefully that helps the river as a whole.
My next stop off is Rothes and Aikenway where Robbie Stronach advises that they finished their week with 5 added to the tally. the lucky rods during the week were David Harvey, who got one from Bluestone, Charlie Harmen had one from Creeky, Murray Whiteside had one from Geantree and David Harvey got another two from Geantree .
At Delfur things got off to a good start according to Mark Melville with 4 on Monday in the low warm water conditions.
Charlie Mason had 2 including the only fish of the week.
Everything else we caught were grilse with some wee individuals at 2 lb but most around the 3lbs mark. We managed to catch something every day which was good going.
Arthur Wickson and Bob Spain caught 3 each to their rods.
Colin Humphreys and Charlie Mason both had 4. Lord Hives had a few pulls but couldn’t connect with anything meaningful even though he had his brand new rod!
The river and most tributaries are rising today ,when I checked our gauge a wee while ago it had risen more than 10”.
This should be the week that it finally kicks off with some proper runs of fish and grilse!
Haul em oot!
I hope Mark’s parting comments will prove to be true in the week ahead.
As I slip down the river, Andy Gunn is my next port of call to see how last week went at Orton. Andy advises that they had 2 parties on Orton this week, a team of youngsters with Fathers and a team that have seen many moons.
Mark Everard landed a cracking 15lb fish from the Turn on Monday morning whilst Mark and Caroline Lake produced 3 Grilse between them in Junction and Cooperee. Hector Roberts caught a nice Grilse from Cooperee in the afternoon.
Tuesday was quiet until the evening when 15yr old Fraser Morris landed 2 Grilse from Cooperee and Hector Roberts caught his 2nd, a fine 12lber from Greenbank.
Fraser’s 3rd came from Cooperee again, his biggest ever Salmon of 14lb on Wednesday morning and Mark Lake had another Grilse, this time from New Pool.
Thursday was a blank although we did have a few chances. Three more Grilse on Friday, Mark Everard, Tim Trotter and a 1st ever salmon for 13yr old Charlie Yates.
Young Ollie Matthews landed his 1st of the week, a Grilse from the Turn and a 13lber was caught from the same pool in the evening.
The river is rising at the moment, so looking forward to a busy week of rod bending action!
My penultimate stop this week is Gordon Castle and Brae Water where Lewis Webb reports a challenging week with last weeks heat and bright conditions continuing to keep water temperatures higher than the ideal, for the most part we adjusted angling times to suit which generally paid off for most parties.
A good mix of sealiced salmon and grilse with the odd older fish thrown in the mix just to add to variety.
The combines were out starting work on the winter barley harvest later in the week, so naturally the heavens have now opened!
Some welcome cloud has rolled in for what looks to be a good few days so we shall see what this change brings to the river!
Finally Andy Milne of Fochabers Angling Association reports that their week finished with 19 grilse and 2 salmon, most of them caught on Monday and Tuesday and 6 of them to Ian Tennant.
What will next week bring well the river has risen which is a big bonus, as this will freshen things up and perhaps encourage fish to move about a bit. the weather looks as if there is a bit of cloud about next week so we can only hope for a good week.
Tight lines if you are out and about
Sandy
