Wednesday 30 May 2012

Big run of fish!!

                                    Beauty from Ballogie

Well catches have improved this week with a good run of new fish which have stirred up some of the resident fish as well. Ballogie and Carlogie are doing well but Commonty doesn't seem to be holding fish, which is strange as they have resident fish in most of the pools.

     One of 4 fish caught by Andrew Williamson at Carlogie yesterday

With only 1 day remaining of the spring season I hope that we finish with a big day tomorrow, we are still chasing numbers and hope to beat last years total for May at Carlogie, conditions couldn't be more perfect with good river levels and cloudy skies and lots of fish!!!

I will do a complete round up of the Spring catches on Friday when I gather all the details of what has been caught and will post a review of the spring season.

Sunday 27 May 2012

100th fish from Carlogie

                              Back to carry on it's journey

Carlogie landed it's 100th fish of the season this week which also coincided with the first Sea trout being caught from the beat, Carlogie was top beat on the river again this week, which considering the conditions was a great achievement, well done to John Coutts and his party for getting up early and fishing very late but this was the only way to catch fish in the bright conditions.

           The 18lber caught by Chris Smith, helped by Grandson Will.

With only 4 days left of the spring we are still chasing numbers, Ballogie only need 2 to beat the 5 year average and Carlogie have already beaten the 5 year average but we still need 11 to beat last years superb total of 70 fish for May, conditions this week look a little better with colder daytime temperatures forecast, so we will hopefully have a great end to the spring run.

Thursday 24 May 2012

Costa Del Dee!!

                                 Superb fish from Ballogie.

It's proving difficult this week due to the huge change in temperature we've seen on Deeside, the water temperature was 49f on Monday but by tuesday evening it had risen to 61.5f which is the fastest rise i've ever seen! The daytime temperature also rocketed with a high yesterday of 24C which in turn melted the snow we had last week and the river has risen to over 2ft 4". The fish seem unable to cope with the changing conditions and have just switched off!! The only positive thing i've seen is a few Sea trout have entered the river and are showing in the pools, this evening should see some better conditions, as the sun sets and the air cools we may get some sport, Fingers crossed!


Tuesday 22 May 2012

Ladies Day

                              A wee bar of Silver from Commonty

Chris Smith had a day to remember today, she hooked 3 large fish and landed 2 of them! She had 1 at 16lbs and 1 at 18lbs from the top Gannets pool before 10 O'clock this morning, then she hooked into something much larger, the fish took in the Top Gannets and after a great fight decided to leave the pool and head for the Middle Gannets, were again after fighting it again it then ran out down to the Lower Gannets, all this took place over a 20 minite period, the fish then decided it didn't like the Lower Gannet and ran back up the other side of the pool heading upstream, trying to get back to the Middle Gannet and the leader snapped!! Somebody will hopefully land a big fish this week, I hope it's us!!
I should get pictures of the fish when she gets back home.



                             And a thumper from Ballogie                      

Sunday 20 May 2012

250th fish

                          From the Lower Inchbare, Ballogie

We had the 250 Salmon of the season yesterday from the Ballogie Beats and it was caught by none other than the Laird! This is our first great milestone of this season and I hope we can go on building on this great accievement. The Lairds party finished with 14 for the week, with the total catch being 20 from the 3 beats, not too bad considering the weather conditions and the rising and falling river. As I write this we have had a daytime temperature of 14 degrees, so I can see the river rising overnight due to snow melt which will again unsettle the fish for tomorrow.

                                 Solid Silver in the net

Friday 18 May 2012

A more positive note



                                Sealiced fish from Carlogie

I expected a few more fish this week but they are coming through in small pods and if you're in a pool where they stop you're in luck! We pick away at every pod catching 1 or 2 as they move through the beats, if we get a fish a Commonty we can expect some action an hour or so later at Ballogie and then later at Carlogie.

                       Nice fish from the Garden pool at Commonty

The evening fishing has been hard due to the cold conditions we have, this week last year the water temperature was 10 degrees warmer so the fish switch off as it get colder later in the evening, we have had snow down to lower levels on Thursday and a cold northeasterly wind since which isn't helping catches. In my career as a Ghillie, I've never seen snow as late as this but on a more positive note the hills have plenty of snow which could keep the river at a good height well into June

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Lairds week

                                    Nice fish from Commonty

Well the Boss is fishing this week so the pressures on!! He has the rods at Carlogie and the 2 above the bridge at Ballogie, on monday we only landed 2 both from Ballogie but improved with 5 yesterday, 2 again from Ballogie but with 3 from Carlogie.

Commonty got our first Seatrout of the season with a fine fish of 4lbs, anyone who catches Seatrout on the Dee knows this is a cracker and hopefully this will mean some good sport in the evenings for them.

        Action from the Bullworks, the best high water pool on the river! 

Sunday 13 May 2012

Top beat again!!

                       A good fish from the Bullworks Ballogie

A disapointing end to the week after the river came up on Friday night and lots of peat entered the river and I knew we would struggle, however it was still a great week with Carlogie claiming top spot on the river with 21 salmon, Ballogie finished with 9 and Commonty 6 which compared to last season was half of the catch on the same week last year.


With the river dropping and the colour clearing I'm looking forward to seeing whats in the pools tomorrow, The weather forcast is for showers for the start of the week however at the moment we have gale force winds battering us, these are supposed to die down for tomorrow so casting should be easier for the guests.

Friday 11 May 2012

Decent Catches

                                 A beauty from Ballogie

Catches continue to improve this week, with a total of 31 Salmon caught so far from the 3 beats, Carlogie is leading the way with 19 so far, biggest 19lb caught today by Tony Wheeler from the Village pool, this was his biggest ever on a fly! Ballogie have had 9 so far but yesterday the rods had lots of lost fish including 5 lost fish in a row (Rubber hooks again!) Commonty has had 6 so far, but worringly Ian reports not many resident fish in the pools, therefore the fish seem to be running straight through.

                                       Ready for action

Tuesday 8 May 2012

A fantastic day



                     Sealicer going back at Frasers pool Carlogie

A fantastic day yesterday on the Ballogie beats, Carlogie had a great day landing 7, Ballogie only managed 1 but it was the biggest off the river and Commonty had 3. It's great to see these new sealiced fish coming into the middle river now but it's also a bit worring to see fungus even on the fresh fish.

                                 A bright fish from Carlogie

A small rise in the river seemed to put the fish off today but hopefully it will settle down by this evening and we should enjoy some good sport till we lose the light.

Monday 7 May 2012

TOP BEAT!!!

                   Nice fish from the Garden pool at Commonty

As of last week Ballogie was the top beat on the whole river!! We broke the 100 salmon mark on Saturday and finished up with 104 by the end of the day. The fact that we have had one of the worst Springs for conditions I can remember makes this a special acheivement and I would like to thank all the Fishermen and Women who have made this possible.

                                          Back it goes!

It was good to see both Ballogie and Carlogie leading the way last week both being the top beats on the river and in total the Ballogie beats produced 31 fish for the week. It was good to hear that Henrik Larsens party had a good end to the week with 6 fish on Saturday evening, it shows that fishing into the late evening can be very productive.

                Another fish for Ola from the Garden pool at Commonty

Tuesday 1 May 2012

"Monster"



                                       A face full of bubbles!

A quieter start to the week than I thought but the river rose almost a foot yesterday and went coloured! We mansaged 1 from Carlogie caught by Alan Lankshear from the village and 2 from Ballogie, biggest 15lbs.

                             Action at the Sands pool, Ballogie

Today saw more action at Ballogie, we lost a good fighting fish from the Sands then got a 10lb fish from the Bullworks and had a 10lber from the Lower Inchbare pool.



I got a call from a fisher at Carlogie who was into a "Monster" in the Long Haugh pool and couldn't move it. I was just in Alans pool above him and waded across to the island in my Tweeds and wellys, I was up to my Crown jewels as I crossed the stream and on reaching the fisher I said it had better be a big fish! A couple of minutes later we had the "Monster" landed but it turned out only to be a 13lb "Monster", luckily he had caught it on one of my flies so I forgave him for getting me soaked.