Good evening all
Apologiesa for the lateness of the hour in publishing this weeks report but have bneen busy with an International Curling Competition in elgin this weekend so getting caught up now.
It was a reasonable week for the first one of April with tempertaues being pretty reasonable and indeed beating previous highs in some parts of the country and yet the following day it was back to cold air streams- Scottish wetaher is a fickle beast.
The nights are certainly stretching as the years hurries along, its still fairly bright here as we push 9pm.
The warmer weather, at times, last week certainly pushed things along a bit in the garden with more bushes budding up as we venture further into spring. I have seen quite a few song birds darting about with beakfuls of nesting material as the prepare for raering the next generation.
The Board and the staff have been busy planting out the last of the unfed fry in the catchment and undertaking some smolt trapping in the upper reaches. Atticus the Biologist also shared the undernoted clip of a clump of frog spawn to show that spring is well on its way.
Once again we are thankful for the support of Loop Tackle in its sponsorship on the weekly report and they have put anothe Dellik jacket up for grabs in either ladies or mens styling. A great jacket made from high quality Sympatex fabric and a lot of good features, I can testify to its waterproofness having survived a few downpours with any water ingress.
Ok onto the river to see how things have been.
At Gordon Castle/Brae Water Lewis webb reportsthat river conditions weren’t ideal early in the week due to snowmelt, keeping levels up, before fining down nicely by midweek. The spring show continues, with sandpipers back on the banks piping their song and the first swallows now being seen.
Fish activity has been steady, with movement noted daily. Thursday produced fish to the net, while Friday saw a few chances missed before the wind made a nuisance of itself.
Slipping upstream to Orton where Andy Gunn advises that it was another strong week on Orton 🎣
Water levels started at 3ft 4” and dropped steadily to 1ft 9”, with an average temperature of 5.6°C.
Tuesday morning saw Peter Bowling land his first fish of the season, a fine 9lb licer from Lower Cairnty. On Wednesday, a familiar face from my Tay days, Ralph Bova, fishing Orton for the first time, landed two superb 9lb fish from Upper Cairnty, the second still carrying sea lice. Ralph’s first-ever Springers, very well done!
Another Orton first-timer, Gareth Robson, landed his first Spey springer, an 8lb fish from House Pool. Thursday morning brought more success, with relative newcomer Sam Game landing her first-ever Spey springer, an 8lb sea-liced fish from Upper Cairnty.To round off the week, Saturday afternoon saw Tweed ghillie Iain Wilson (Makerstoun) land his first Spey springer — a hard-fighting 10lb licer from the Turn. Sam Game also added her second fish of the week, a cracking 9lber, again from the Turn.
Great to see so many firsts and smiling faces on the river this week 👏
Up to Mark Melville at Delfur next who reports that they had a great fun week as usual here at Delfur with fish caught everyday.
Team leader and chief comedian John Martin got us off to a great start on Monday afternoon with a fine fish from Sourden. It was followed in quick succession by Jamie Hammond in Hollenbush and Iain Laing in Collie!
Tuesday Iain Laing caught a cracking fish from Sourden which was also the biggest of the week.
John Martin did his Sourden trick again on Wednesday morning as the river stayed pretty high and steady with some diurnal effects the first few days.
The water temperature fluctuated between 39 to 46 f throughout the week:
Thursday we had a first time visit by Andrew McCaig who didn’t take long in catching his first from Beaufort.
Our first evening fish of the season was hooked and landed by Jamie Hammond from Big Haddie as the river finally fell away.
Friday found Andrew up on the top beat of Sourden and Big Haddie where he managed the double! A stunning fish from Haddie followed by a quick double from Sourden.
Graeme Bone who had been unlucky so far managed to catch a nice fish from Beaufort.
Graeme was back in action again on Saturday morning with a fine fish from Broom.
Andrew finished off a very fine week with our first fish from Two Stones this season. Four fish in three days, it doesn’t get much better than that for spring fishing.
We had action most sessions with fish pulled and lost too. We also saw fish every day, morning and afternoon which was very encouraging.
The first swallows appeared home yesterday and the Sandpipers are pairing up already as they only arrived this week. Spring is well underway.
Next on my stop off list is Rothes and Aikenway where Robbie Stronach advises that their week ended with 6 fish in the book. The lucky rods were David Caswell, Nic Coy, Jayne Bell, Chris Longstaff and Dvaid Theaker well done all.
Fighting my way upstream I stop in at Arndilly where Euan Reid reports that this week on Arndilly we had Stephen Lodge and his team. Stephen has been coming to Arndilly for 16 years now and we have seen several generations of the Lodge family catch their first salmon here. This year it was Stephen’s grandson Ben who caught his first ever and our first of the week on Thursday, 8.5lb from the Bulwark, well done Ben.
Stephen’s brother Frank ( an 8 year Arndilly veteran) who had only had 1 fish in years of trying managed 2 on Friday, 11lb from the Long Pool and 9.5lb from the Piles. Stephen Bate also had a bonny 6.5lb fish from the tail of the Bulwark in a similar place to Bens fish, 2ft on the gauge.
We lost others, Carl Statham in the Piles and Ben one Long Pool but we seemed to have batches of fish rather than a steady run of fish. The river is up a bit today and we are a week later in the season so hoping and expecting a better week this week.
Easter Elchies is next on the list and Orn Sigurhansson reports a week of water dropping towards the end of the week and fresh fish. Split week this at Easter Elchies and we were delighted to welcome both the McCreath and Waugh fishing parties. The week got off to a great start with Nigel Dudgeon landing a cracking springer off the favored left shoulder in Upper Dips. The week ended strongly with 3 landed on Saturday. Charles Hewitt and Peter Graham both with a brace of fish for their days fishing. Really fun week, final total of 5.
Aberlour Angling Club had a couple for their week on thier Association water with Ally Miller and Andrew Philips getting on the scorecard.
Across the river Wester Elchies had three fish reports Malcolm Newbould with fish falling to the rods of Phil Rennie, Andrew J May and Scott Thompson.
Things are quiet until Carron where Neil Borthwick reports that Monday morning got off to a fantastic start with Steve Hulme landing a sea liced fish from the Bothy at 3ft4” on our gauge.
Optimism was high after this however despite the best efforts of everyone else fishing the beat this week no other fish were encountered.
Disappointing but we move on to next week with hope.
At Lower Pitchroy, Andrew Hall reports that they welcomed back Peter Murray and his team for the first half of the week and Paul West and his young squad for the second half.
We got off to a flyer on Monday morning with young 18 year old, Alex Murray landing his very first spring salmon of 8lbs on his 3rd cast in slobs. The fish was bleeding a little bit but went off pretty strongly.
Sadly, we peaked to soon and that was all that was landed for the week although a few brief encounters were had throughout the week.
The water is dropping in to a better height now for the beat so let’s hope the water temperature picks up a bit and a few more fish appear.
My Final stop is with Simon Crozier at Castle Grant who advisesthat the high water continued for most of the week before dropping towards the end of the of the week.
Some success was had however, Stuart Martin had a cracking springer from the right bank of Polchraine on Tuesday.
He followed that up with another cracker from number 2 burn on Thursday.
Ghillie Allan Grant had a cracking 8lb springer from Kinchurdy on Thursday also, his fish coming from generals pool.
With steady water heights we hope for continued sport in the coming weeks.
Whilst up in the Grantown area I am delighted to annouce that Mortimers in Grantown will be opening their doors on a Sunday afternoon from 1pm until 4pm from the 4th of May to welcome any anglers coming to fish the mighty Spey. An ideal opportunity if you are needing to stock up with anything or need a new pair of waders etc. The staff in the shop will be more tha helpfull and be delighted to see visitors to the shop on a Sunday.
Ok now on to this weeks prize winner and given the numbers of fish landed this week its been a tough one to pick but I am deloghted to announce the recipient of a Loop Jacket will be Sam Game, very well done.
The week ahead looks to be prwetty settled so we can only hope the current success continues.
Tight lines
Sandy
