Good afternoon all
Another week slips under the radar as I sit and look out at the sun but the wind is still cold.
The garden continues to come to life, as does the grass so the lawnmower had to come yesterday so the weekly chop has started. Will need to be thinking about the tomato plants for the greenhouse soon. The farmers are busy these days with the settled weather as this years crops are planted out.
The week gone by has helped the farmers are the continued dry weather ( interspersed with some nasty showers) allowed thenm to “plough”on but at times the wind has continued to have a cold edge to it and some of the gusts were pretty intense.
If you have not seen this on the news and also on social media, the river, the Board and its staff were faced with a heartbraking incident in the middle river, wher a mjaor pollution incident unfolded. You will see from the following pictures that this was a considerable incident of pollution, caused by illeagal dumping/flytipping in the vicinity of the Carron Burn. Somebidy decided it was good for the environment to dump some oil based paint out at a layby on the A95 which subsequently founds its way into the burn, resulting in what can only be described as a travesty.
The river environment has taken a hit from the incident losing fish, frogs along with other river dwelling creatures as the polluted wtawer made its way down the burn and into the mainstream of the river. The costs of the incident to the river and its inhabitants is till unknown at this stage but SEPA and Police Scotland currently have investigations ongoing.
Thankfully unfed fry recently planted out were upstream of the incident and remain unaffected.
The fragile nature of the Atlantic salmon in our rivers does not need this kind of mindless flytipping and complete nglicence on the part of the perpetrators. We can only but hope that some form of outcome comes from any investigation.
Once again we have a prize up for grabs this week, kindlt provided by Loop Tackle. This week we are moving away from clothing, with Loop very generously putting up a 7X rod of choice for the winner. The 7x rod is the flagship of the current Loop range and a delight to use. The winner of this superb rod will be at the end of the report.
Right lets head to the river and see how things have been.
Up at Castle Grant, Simon Crozier reports that last week saw us start with around 1ft 9 on the gauge and it remained up all week being around 1ft 6 on Saturday.
We got off the mark on Tuesday when Robert Liegl from visiting from Bavaria had a fine springer from the Manse.
Apart from the odd brief encounter things remained quiet untill Saturday.
Tom Riall had a sealiced belter of 9lb from Polchraine, Alison Taylor had a 9lber from Pollowick and another of 8lb came from the March in the evening.
With a few fish showing up downstream we look forward to next week.
Heading downriver to Knockando where Sam Jarman reports that it was a week of fluctuating water heights and cold water temperatures for the rods at Knockando to cope with.
We ended up with three fish in the book. Two of around 8 lbs on lightly dressed Cascade coneheads on Tuesday. Both appeared to have been in the river for a few weeks.
Les Tyson caught a fresh fish of around 12lbs from Slioch on Friday, and lost another of similar size in the same pool on Saturday.
All our fish so far this season have been hooked well down in the water on long, fast sinking tips or shooting heads.
With cool weather forecast to continue the floating lines and small flies might need to stay in the bag for a few weeks yet. The upside is that we will hopefully have snow melt keeping the river topped up with cold water well into May, something of a rarity in the past few years.
Continuing the journey down the river to Carron wher Neil Borthwick advises that this week we had Simon Martin, Steve Hulme & friends fishing the beat. Water levels were really good for us & it was a surprise that it took until Friday morning for Simon Martin to get us off the mark with a nice fish out of Dalmunach.
After losing a fish on Saturday morning the week finished well when a second fish was landed in the afternoon. I was kindly asked to fish a rod myself on Saturday afternoon and I ended up in the right place at the right time to land one in the Carron Pool.
Encouraging signs for the week ahead.
Next stop on my journey is with David Smillie at Delagyle who are now off the mark with two this week for the McKenzie party. George McKenzie landed a cracking 16lber in Willows whilst Stue Paton wangled a 10lber out of the Tail of Pol Mac.
At Aberlour Angling Club, a single fish was added to thier tally with Gerry Welsh landing a nice one.
On the other bank, Wester Elchies had a good week according to Malcolm Newbould. Malcolm reports that they had a better week with 5 fish landed, the best being a fine 14lber by David Theaker which outdid his best last week at Rothes!!
Slipping downstream to Easter Elchies where Orn Sigurhansson reports a split week at Easter Elchies with fresh fish caught. We were very pleased to welcome both the MacDonald and Caswell fishing parties this week to Easter Elchies. Water level starting at 10 inches and finishing the week on 13 inches.
Wednesday was our best day, with 3 fish landed, including a first fish for William Whitney. We ended the week on 7 salmon, a good spring return.
My next stop is to catch up with Euan Reid at Arndilly. Euan delighted to report that this week we had Mike Arnall and his team who have been coming here since the early 90’s through thick and thin and this turned out to be one of the better ones. We didn’t start very well with a blank Monday but got no less that 3 per day thereafter to take us to a total of 17. The water temperature varied from 42 at the beginning of the week to 48 from midweek on and the height was between 10″ and 21″.
Robert Shanks was the star of the show with 5 fish, closely followed by Mark Thorpe with 4. Adam Stacy-Clear had 3 in the last 2 days and Colin Taylor, Martin Ashford and David Parkin had a fish each. Blair Banks took up a kind invitation to fish on Saturday afternoon and had a fish from Cobble Pot.
A special commendation goes to Mike Arnall being the perfect party leader and allowing the rest of the team to catch fish and not getting one himself. Those that know Mike and his fishing ability will understand how hard it is to believe Mike finished blank. That’s salmon fishing for you.
A wonderful spring week among like minded people. This is why we do it.
Robbie Stronach at Rothes and Aikenway is my next port of call to see how their week wnet.Robbie reports that they ended up with 8 fish for the week and lost about the same. Rob Hall-Jones got one from creeky and two from junction, Jenny Larson got one from Burnmouth, Don Mackenzie wieghed in with two from Long Pool and Phil Odling got one from Burnmouth and one from Junction.
At Delfur, Mark Melville advises that Another good spring weeks fishing here at Delfur getting into doible figures again. We had another great fun week with Andy Britton and his team.
It was only right that Andy got us off and running on Monday with a fine fish from Beaufort with the gauge sitting at +1” and water temp of 44f.
Top rod for the week was the man with a hat for everyday Richard Meigh who finished with 4 for the week.
Richard landed his first on Monday too,this one from Big Haddie.
It was Richard who enabled us to catch a fish everyday of the week again with the biggest caught from Two Stones on Tuesday and another fish from Beaufort on Wednesday.
Thursday saw the Albatross master Mr Colin (Banjo) Mathieson landing a fine spring fish from Collie.
Brendan Winters visiting from over the Irish Sea had a nice fish from Beaufort which was his first Spey fish.
Andy Britton made it 3 for Thursday with a cracking fish from Collie after a good lift of snowmelt water and the temperature rising to 48f.
Brendan was back in the action on Friday from his new favourite pool
Beaufort.
Saturday gave us a few more fish with Richard Meigh catching a sea liced fish from Colllie with his good luck ghillie Davie McIntosh.
Andy Britton landed a fine sea liced fish from the Hollenbush which gave him a good scrap!
We had a visit from Colin’s friend Allan Barraclough who fished Saturday and was rewarded after falling in with a lovely sea liced fish from Collie.
Again lots of fish seen everyday which gives us all encouragement for the coming week ahead.
Down to Orton next where Andy Gunn reports that they had 3 fish landed for the week and 3 lost.
Monday morning Zac Ludgrove landed his 1st of the season, a long tailed licer from Upper Cairnty.
Zac was into them again on Wednesday morning in Cairnty when he lost 2 and landed a 10lb beauty.
Norrie Wilson landed a fine 10lb fish from Twenty Pound pool in the afternoon.
Water temperature increased significantly as the week went on and we are still seeing plenty fresh fish moving through the beat.
My final stop off this week is with Lewis Webb who reports that at Gordon Castle/Brae Water it was another challenging week on the river, with strong winds at times and the river stubbornly reluctant to drop into low water. Despite the mixed conditions, one thing has remained constant — the fish are running hard. We’ve had daily contact, though only one made it all the way to the net, landed by Mr Bredell on his very first days of salmon fishing.
A special mention goes to 5-year-old Harry, who caught his first trout during a short lesson before lunch, proudly watched by his family. Moments like these are what make time on the river truly memorable, especially when salmon can prove elusive.
On Saturday we hosted our “Flies and Flutes” ladies day welcoming 8 ladies to enjoy some sparkling wines in between casting lines. A great day was had by all and we hope to run some similar events in the future.
This weeks winner of the Loop 7X rod of their choice is Robert Shanks – many congratulations and I will be in touch to get details etc.
Finally I could not let this weeks youngest angler go un-noticed for his success in catching his first fish and to this end a Loop Fishing cap will be making its way to him, well done Harry.
Next week looks to be a fairly settled week so hopefully ideal condiitons to land a fish or two.
Tight lines
Sandy
