Wednesday 28 March 2012

A good day in the Bridge Pool, Ballogie, river Dee



A great video from Roar Lindso from Norway, It's not often I get it wrong but this is evidence that even I'm fallible! Lol we've had quite a few of these smaller fish like Roar's second one, I've taken scales off quite a few now, some as small as 3lbs!!


A superb oil painting looking up towards the bridge pool at Potarch, Ballogie. Painted by Alistair Makinson, it measures 10" x 14" he is offering this original painting for sale for £550 with a donation of 10% going to the River Dee Trust. Alistair can be contacted via email alistair.makinson@btinternet.com or if you want to look at more of Alistair's superb work then check out his website www.alistairmakinson.com  where you can also buy prints as well as originals, there is one of the bend pool at Commonty that I spotted!! Click on the painting to see an enlarged picture.

Monday 26 March 2012

A tough week!!

  A fish with long tailed sealice caught by John Lawson in the Flats pool Ballogie

With the continuing drought we are suffering on Deeside it's still amazes me to see some decent catches, 6 at Ballogie last week with the majority of fish with sealice combined with 2 from Carlogie and 1 from Commonty made this a good week considering. Ballogie has had it's best March since I took over as head ghillie and with a week to go hopefully the other 2 beats will beat their 5 year averages.
 With no sign of rain till this weekend, it will again be hard going but with lots of fish showing in the pools theres always a good chance if you fish sensibly, small rods, light lines and Small flies.

                                  A casualty of the very low conditions

Please remember that in the current conditions the fish are under a great deal of stress, so play them hard and get them back into the water as quickly as possible, try to keep them in the water and move them out into the more streamier water so they can recover faster before releasing them.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Prayers answered


 Some photos from Robin Johansson who fished last week at the Ballogie beats


Not often my predictions come true, but today saw the river rise slightly and the fish came on the take! Ballogie scored first with 1 from the Slips then another from the Top Gannets and in the afternoon another fish from the slips which weighed 14lbs. Carlogie also had a fish from the Coronation pool again caught by angler Alan Wilson who also lost another fish last night and we lost another springer in the Boat pool after the running line got caught inbetween the spool and the reel housing!!!


With the river temperature hitting 49f today the fish were more inclined to move for the fly but with no more rain forcast the river will drop back quickly and the pools will become harder to fish.




Monday 19 March 2012

20lber!

                       A beauty from Commonty caught by Lars Terkildsen

As expected the fishing was slow today with only 1 fish reported from the 3 beats, but this was a fantastic springer from the Boat pool at Carlogie, it was measured at 38" which is approx 20lbs! It was hooked by the Elephant rock in the Boat pool and eventually landed in the Village pool after a great fight.

                                 Alan Wilsons fish from Carlogie

Hopefully some of the rain that has been falling on the west coast will have come over as far as our western catchment area and will may give the river a small rise in height, we will need this as tomorrow the weather forcast predicts temperatures of 18c which will probably not help the fishing much in the afternoon but will hopefully raise the water temperature and get the fish more active.


Sunday 18 March 2012

A good week??


Lars Terkildsen returning a fish at Carlogie- you may have to watch this twice!!

 At the end of this week the Ballogie beats had caught over half the fish caught on the whole of the river Dee!! We finished up with 18 salmon for the week which was fantastic considering the conditions we had. I hope to see some rain soon or the fishing will become almost impossible due to the height of the pools, I can only hope that over the weekend more fish have moved quickly through the lower river and will rest at the Ballogie beats, this was happening last week as we caught numerous fish with sealice and 1 with long tailed lice!!

                             Pete Lonsdale with a fish from the bridge pool

There will be more photos from this week, as soon as I receive them via email I'll post them each night





Wednesday 14 March 2012

Getting Low!!

                                 A little Torpedo from the Top Gannets

                                              And away it goes

With bright sunshine and high temperatures it has become increasingly difficult to catch fish, the water height has dropped down to 10" on the gauge and the water temperature has risen today to just over 50f we have tried to go smaller and lighter with the flies and the lines but it's been the last hour of daylight when all the action has taken place, so hopefully tonight we have managed a few more to add to the weeks catches. With sealiced fish in yeaterdays catches we hope that new fish are moving up fast from each tide and coming to rest at the Ballogie beats.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

more pics!

 

Fly-only's Mawill ludenbach with a 18lb sealicer caught on a Franc N Snealda

A cracker for Thomas Torpe from the Slips pool at Ballogie

We finished with 10 for the day yesterday, Dan Christensen got another at 17lbs from Ballogie




                         


Monday 12 March 2012

A great start!!

                 Peter Lonsdale playing one of the 6 fish he caught last week

A new week and some new fish! The Ballogie beats had a fantastic day today with a total catch of 9 salmon for the 3 beats, Ballogie had 6, Commonty had 2 and Carlogie 1, the largest coming from Carlogie at 18lbs.

                               Dan with his second fish from Ballogie

With the rods still fishing after I left to go back to the Doctors we may still have more fish to count as they will fish until dark. Tactics were changing all day starting off with float sink tip setups, then deep sinking lines fished in the slow deep pools with Frances flies to sunrays fished in the faster water.

A note to anyone who thinks some of these fish were Kelts, please note that I have seen photos of 5 out of 6 fish caught at Ballogie and will have photos soon of the others caught today from the other 2 beats. Just thought I would post this because of the jealous individuals who have already made some comments tonight. End of rant!!

Thursday 8 March 2012

Franc n Snaelda!!!

                                    The Deadly Franc N Snaelda!

This one of my new flies for 2012 and so far it's performing very well, due to the fact the river is so low it's had limited use with only 1 fish last week but with a rise in water I decided to give them a go today, straight away the first fish to fall to it was a cracker from the Lower Gannets pool weighing in at 16lbs, then next was a Rawner of around 12lb plus a couple of Kelts. In the afternoon it came good again producing a fish from the Floating bank at 12lbs plus another couple of Kelts, so not bad considering it's a high water fly!

                           16lbs of silver courtesy of the Franc N snaelda

Wednesday 7 March 2012

A small rise

                        Ernie Hemmings with a fish from the Top Gannets

The river rose today and the fish came on!! We managed to get 1 off each beat all as the river started to rise, 1 from the Mill pool at Carlogie, 1 from the top Gannets at Ballogie and 1 from the Otter Trap at Commonty, we lost 2 Springers from Ballogie and also had 7 seven Kelts biggest 15lbs. Hopefully this rise will encourage some new fish to move up the river ready to be caught tomorrow!!

                      The new Scott Mackenzie 11ft 2" 7/8 "Unbelievable"

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Change of tactics!!

                                    Willie Gunn Snaelda strikes again!!!

Since Friday of last week it's been virtually been impossible to catch a fish but we changed tactics today and had a great result! Off came the floating lines and on went the sinkers, we fished slow and deep with sink 3 shooting heads combined with Black Frances tubes and Sunray shadows we managed to get 3 from Ballogie! My fly box emptied as we lost lots of flies fishing this way but it was worth it.

                A lucky escape after a near miss with a seal! (look at the tail)

With the water gauge sitting at 1ft it feels more like summer fishing than early March, hopefully we can get some rain over the next couple of days and get a decent lift in water height, and this will hopefully bring up a few new fish.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Doubles in March!!

                 Dr Patrick with a fish from the Garden pool at Commonty

I knew it wouldn't be long before we switched to double hooks instead of tubes but never thought it would be on the 1st of March!!! We got a fish today from Ballogie on a floating line with a size 8 Cascade double, we had tried every tube in the box and thought a change of size could do the trick, it can pay off to do something different from time to time.

                           And another from the Boat pool at Commonty