Good afternoon everyone.
Another week of the season is under our belt as we find ourselves well over half way through what has been an odd season so far in many respects.
Its been a mixed day here in Elgin, a few showers but also some weak sunshine, far better than the bright stuff we have had to endure of late.
Farmers have already started the harvest in the area with fields of barley and wheat being tackled with gusto. I did read on social media earlier that they had never experienced harvesting wheat in July, as this tends to be a slightly later crop and I will agree I have not seen it harvested this early. The tenant farmers have been busy where I work sorting out sheep and lambs, as I think they were splitting some lambs away from their mothers who certainly made it vocal as to what they thought of this action.
The gardens are certainly benefitting from the mixed weather we are seeing with some phenomenal growth in both the plants and weeds, with the grass needing mown again.
Before we head on to the river to see how things have fared the Board have asked me to include the following video on the subject of fishing handling/catch and release. Most of us are well aware of what we should do to ensure or fragile stock of fish continue to head upstream to do what they have to do, without our poor handing causing further distress.
The weather certainly did some good as mentioned above for the gardens, crops etc but lets see what happened up and down the rive rover the past week
Starting up river at Castle Grant, Simon Crozier reports that they got the water we have been after with river rising to over 2ft on Tuesday and dropping back to summer level by Saturday.
We started off on Monday with a fresh 8lber for John Porter from Greenbank.
It was a struggle then until Thursday evening with good water but it was carrying colour .
Then our fortunes took a turn for the better with 5 fish all from Greenbank on Thursday evening. Johnny Tomlinson getting 3. Friday was quiet with only a few seatrout coming to hand. Saturday saw us seeing some fresh grilse making an appearance with fish being seen across the beats we had a few more grilse to hand and various other encounters. Jack Crozier had a fine seatrout of around 6or7lb from Delliefure.
With a few fresh grilse in our beats and the hope of more to come we look forward to next week.
I do hope that we see more fish spread out through the system over the next few weeks.
I am aware that fish have been caught across the beats downstream of Castle Grant and above Knockando but I have no further information
Down at Knockando, Archie Baillie tells me that they welcomed the rise in water and it definitely made a difference with us. the week finished with 9 salmon to 17lb, 14 grilse all in great condition and 5 sea trout to 5lb. Wednesday was our best day landing 11 and a couple of sea trout. The second half of the week produced a further 12 salmon and grilse, along with 3 sea trout to the rods. Good numbers of fresh grilse moving through from Wednesday onwards, fingers cross it continues.
Slipping down to Carron where ghillie Ian Borthwick advises that the Michael Trafford party fishing Carron this week got 14 grilse and 2 salmon. I was unaware that Ian was currently unwell and not on the river so my thanks to him for getting out of his sick bed and sending me the craic from last week. Speedy recover sir.
Continuing down the river, my next stop off is with David Smillie at Delagyle, who after a few lean weeks was delighted to report a good week for the Greeham party with nine fish for the week. Head of party Dan, had three salmon to 9 lbs and a seatrout of 4lbs. Luc Angel had three grilse to 4.5lbs and a cracking seatrout of 5.5lbs.
At Kinermony, the news was equally as pleasing when David Brand informed me that they landed 9 fish for the week best one 13lb. Dave Roberts Joffy Grant and Dennis McBain the captors – well done gents. A lot of fish lost and plenty offers and nice to see some water in the river after such a long spell.
Malcolm Newbould at Wester Elchies also reported a better week for the beat with with 6 landed. Plenty showing on Monday when the rising water pushed the fish from the low water lies.
Not much to report on the next few beats as we head down river until we reach Easter Elchies where Orn Sigurhansson reports a week of two halves at Easter Elchies, with much needed rain.
We were very pleased to welcome again the Brodie fishing party to Easter Elchies. The heavy rain on Sunday continued into Monday. Water levels jumped and the water turned colored. On Monday, we saw a lot of fish moving, however the watered colored and we had to wait until Tuesday evening to land our first fish, with Andy Brodie landing a grilse and sea trout from Fiddich Mouth. 2 fish on Wednesday morning, one from Ladies Haugh and one from Tail of Fiddich, both pools fish well in high water.
Conditions Thursday to Saturday were near perfect. Fish landed throughout the beat. Red letter day for Donald Brodie on Thursday with 6 fish to his own road, what a day! Peter Kidd bounced back from losing a big fish in Red Craigs, with 2 grilse from Fiddich Mouth on Saturday afternoon. Ian Simpson also joined us, landing 3 fish to his rod. The whole team worked hard and fished well. Good number of summer salmon caught. Total of 23 salmon and grilse for the week, a great July week on Speyside.
Next stop is Arndilly where Euan Reid advises that this week we had Rose Hollingbery and her team and what a great week we had.
I’m very aware that the middle and upper river is having a very difficult season and I hope that the rise of water has helped a bit.
I don’t want anyone who reads this to think we are not aware of how lucky we are to be in this area of the river because it’s tough elsewhere.
After the weekend rise, we had a pretty coloured river on Monday but still managed 2. Both were first fish, congratulations to Sam Street, 7.5lbs and Tom Mills, 3lb, both from Bulwark at 3″.
The upper catchment rain and colour hit us on Tuesday and it was unfishable really. We fished, for the simple reason that we had a lot of beginners and a day of training and practice is never wasted. We had 8 on Wednesday, and we’ll never know how many of them we had because of the practice day but I’m guessing it helped.
Will Higgins had his first and second fish, 5.5lb and 16.5lb from Back of the Bog and Eliza Agnew also had her first fish from the same pool. Jack Mumford had his first fish from Piles left as did Henry Jackson from the left side of the Soo.
Sam Street, again, and Rose H, and Rowan were the other scorers.
Lucy Redman had her first fish, Jocks Tail right on Wednesday, Rose H, Jocks Tail from the boat and the Polish Missile, Wik had one from Reids.
Jack Mumford and Millie O’connor had 1 each from Reids on Friday morning and Rose and March Hollingbery both had fish from Back of the Bog.
The water dropped away to -3 on Saturday but stayed cool which I’m sure helped us get 7 on Saturday. Honor Price had her first fish, 5lb from the Jocks Tail boat, closely follow from the same place by Rufus Wallis, 13.5lb .
Millie O’connor and Honor Price had another each and March H, having just lost a couple, including quite a big one, landed a 9.5lb fish from the right side of the neck of Cobble Pot.
Lucy had her second and George Dakin had fish in the evening.
So a great week with 8 first fish and many new people introduced to our sport.
An added bonus for both March and Rose is getting dinner bought by Wik and Rowan for catching more than their other halves. Bingo!
Below Arndilly is Rothes and Aikenway where ghillie Robbie Stronach reports of a better week than of late with 22 for the week.
On Monday Tom Caswell had the only one from Creeky.On Tuesday it was a single fish day too with Nick Grundy landing one from Jamieson.
Wednesday saw James Cheer land one from Creeky and Jonny Casswell also had one from Creeky.
Following a mid week change over things took off with Rob Taylor getting one from Burnmouth, Ian Galloway had one from Geantree and Town Road, Chris Sheldon caught his first salmon in Jamieson, Tom Cheer landed two fish from Burnmouth and Geantree. George Cheer also got on the scorecard with had 2 from Geantree.
Friday saw Charlotte (Charlie) Sheldon caught her first salmon from Burnmouth and then got a second one from the same pool. Tom Cheer was on the scorecard again with fish from Junction and Geantree, along with Rob Taylor landed one from Sycamore and Bradley Hurn got one from Burnmouth. Saturday saw Rob Taylor got one from Burnmouth, Bradley Hurn with one from Junction, Ian Galloway with one from Burnmouth and Chris Sheldon with one from Geantree.
Mark Melville is my next port of call at Delfur and he was delighted to advise The 3 feet rise certainly did what we all hoped for and pulled in some much needed salmon and grilse.
It was great to have lots of youngsters and also some new fishers join David and Kellie Wood’s party.
Monday kicked off well with 8 fish and grilse.
Young Charles Wood caught a nice grilse from Beaufort in the pouring rain. He was casting superbly well and it’s great to see how much he loves his fishing.
His sister Evelyn only took 4 casts to hook and land her grilse from Collie.
Anna Garnett caught the biggest fish for Monday at 14 lbs. Her Grandad Papa John had a lovely big fresh 15lb fish from Beaufort on Wednesday.
The second dirty rise on Tuesday didn’t help but we still managed a fish caught by Sally Channing in Hollenbush.
The river settled and started to drop again on Tuesday night getting everyone excited for the rest of the week.
Delfur didn’t disappoint!
Wednesday was the day that Evelyn’s best friend Charlotte Squires caught her first ever grilse from the Bridge pool.
The whole experience was watched by the Wood family which made it even more special!
It was nice to get back into some of our pools that we’ve not fished for months due to the low water. Collie, tail of Sourden and the tail of the Bridge fished well.
Mark Aitcheson was his usual consistent self catching fish every day.
Stephen Wrisdale had his best ever catch for 3 days even though he was checking the cricket score every 5 minutes!
Robert Jolly managed to trump his wife Teresa for a change and was the top rod catching 11 to his own rod.
Wednesday,Thursday and Friday were bumper days for the team.
On Saturday Mark was delighted to say it was great to ghillie for David and Charles Wood who shared the rod with both of them catching a fish together for the first time. A morning they will never forget, happy days!
Things went a bit quiet in the afternoon.
Team comedian Mark Camacho must have pulled and lost more than the whole total but luckily some of them did stick! He’s there!!
Richard and Charlotte Jackson both caught their first ever fish with Richard’s at 16lb followed the next day with a 15 lbr,plus a couple of grilse!
A great fun weeks fishing had by all with us getting into the 50s.
A special thanks to our two extra ghillies Alex and Graham who helped everyone enjoy themselves so much.
The river is looking good for the coming week, it has fallen away a couple of feet and we have fish in the pools.
At Orton, Andy Gunn was pleased to report a good week for a regular team, fish numbers into the high 20’s with many lost.
Healthy numbers of Grilse and a few Salmon up to 15 & 17lb.
The penultimate stop this week is of course Gordon Castle and Brae Water where Lewis Webb reports a fantastic week here on Gordon Castle and Brae Water.
Despite losing a day and a half to the coloured water of Tuesdays rise, we made up for lost time accounting for over 100 fish in the second half of the week. A welcome mix of salmon and grilse, with everything from sea liced to older fish landed and a substantial amount lost too.
One of our parties celebrated 30 years of fishing on the Brae Water this year alongside them we also welcomed new faces, some of whom were rewarded with their first fish and our youngest rod, 9 year old Fred caught his first migratory fish.
Weeks like this are always a great morale boost after what has been tougher than ideal season so far, it does give some faith that there are fish there and are willing to take when the conditions suit… here’s to a few more!!
Finally calling into see Andy Milne of Fochabers Angling Association who was very please t o advise that they had a very good week with 7 salmon and 49 grilse reported caught.
Visitor Don MacAlister was top rod with 14 salmon and grilse and one sea trout.
Well what a week, just shows what a wee drop of water can do. I was down on the river at Orton on Tuesday night speaking tot he ghillies and man was the river dirty but it is drops and clears very quickly, allowing for the success of the second part of the week.
The week ahead looks to have some cloud and rain in the forecast so we can only keep our fingers crossed for a good week aagin.
Tight lines to those out and about.
Sandy
