Prospects are good!

                                   One goes back at Ballogie

A pretty good result for last week given the conditions, we really lost one and a half days fishing to the flood, however it seems to have brought in a lot of new fish into the system, prospects are pretty good for next week as all the beats will fish very well at the height we have now.

             Jerk Sonnichsen with a fish from  the Slips pool, Ballogie

A total of 42 fish were landed from the Ballogie beats last week with Jerk Sonnichsen's team landing 28 from Ballogie, again this was a great score considering the conditions, however they managed 29 last year when the water was very low, who knows how many they will get when they get a good water level for their week!!

I've subscribed to Twitter, so I can instantly upload catches and photos both to the Blog and also to Facebook, I'll see how it goes and no doubt there will be A few hiccups getting things right. To follow me on Twitter simlpy click on the link at the top of the blog and follow the instructions, If I can do then so can you.

Good day at the office!

                                            Quick release

A rather good day for the Ballogie beats today with a total of 13 salmon so far, I will hopefully get a message tonight with more fish to add. Peter Terndrup was top rod at Ballogie with 5 fish this morning from below the bridge, 2 for River Dee chairman Ian Scott from Carlogie and 1 for Alan Lankshear which was covered in long tailed sealice.

                   Peter Terndrup with salmon no4 from Ballogie

It's great to see so many fish in the pools, after 2 lost days due to high water I hope that we can have a great end to the week. The water height could be perfect for all 3 beats tomorrow so we will see what we can do to get the average up after such a bad start to the season.

           Alan Lankshear playing his fish In the Villadge pool, Carlogie

No more rain dancing!!

This a video of the Cattie Burn which runs through my garden and comes out into the river between The Bullworks and Burnmouth pools

                               Upstream veiw of Potarch Bridge

After a great start to the week the water has gone mad!! Everyday we've had a rise but to day after heavy rain all night the river rose fast just at lunchtime. I was doing a talk to a group of Norwegian beat owners and river managers at Potarch hotel today about what we do at Ballogie to improve the fishing and all about how we market the beats including this blog, this lasted about an hour and during that time the river rose 1ft!!

                          Downstream veiw from Potarch bridge

With Ballogie producing 8 fish on Monday then 3 yesterday and another today we should of had a great score this week but if the river drops, I'm sure the fish will of run hard and and fast up to us and stop for a rest. Commonty had a good day yesterday with 3 for the day and Carlogie have had 1 a day so far this week and it was good to net a fish for Alan Lankshear who at 89 years old and in his 50th year at Ballogie is still pulling them out, he said it was his wish to catch a fish on the Ballogie beats when he is 90!

Potarch Hosts New Fishing Season

A great video for anyone who hasn't seen it on the fishdee website, Ballogie estate will be hosting the opening ceremony at the  Ballogie beat for at least the next 4 years.

    A fish caught last week at Carlogie from the Village pool at 4ft 6 ",     Will managed to hang on to this one after losing 5 in row!!

Up and down

                               Sealiced fish from Commonty

                         Needed sunglasses to take out the hook!!

A week of up and down water saw the Ballogie beats finish off with 14 salmon between them, with Ballogie taking top honours with seven fish, Dr Roy McKerecher had a good week with 5 to his rod mostly on my Smiths shrimp pattern and I managed 2 on Saturday morning from the Sands pool both caught on my Franc N Snaelda fly.
I'm starting to feel better and will try to do work a whole week this week, the doctors seem to have got my medication sorted but time will tell, I hope to do more posts this week and also some articles on late spring flies, so watch this space!

Summer levels!!

                               Nice fish from the Slips pool Ballogie

Conditions have now become very hard! Bright sunshine combined with very low water has meant that fishing the pools is becoming hard work, with all the fish now lying in the streamy necks and tails of the pools we have very limited areas to fish, the risk of disease speading from fish to fish will now accelerate quickly. We are seeing fungus on many springers in the pools and seeing some of the Kelts- I can only describe the as "Furry" as they have so much white fungus on them, we desperatly need some rain so the fish can spread out through the pools and the river temperature can drop.

As always at the Ballogie Beats we will keep encouaging the fishers, keeping them over the lies and try every trick in the book to get them a fish. Hopefully by tomorrow the weather will change and we will get some cloud cover, the forcast is for no rain but we will keep our fingers crosssed for next week.

Back to work!

Decided to go back to work even though I'm still signed off for another week! This turned out to be a mistake as I'm so Knackered! However it was worth it to see another fish caught on my Franc N Snaelda fly.

Peter Lonsdale with a fish on my Franc N Snaelda fly from Alans pool

Hopefully with the river clearing the fish should come on the take and some good cathches will be reported I'm waiting for Ian Fraser to give me a call for a final figure for today

Butterworth paintings

I recently tied some sample flies for the Butterworth Gallery in Ballogie which were going to be framed with prints of River Dee scenes that have been painted by Howard Butterworth.

All the prints are available from the Butterworth Gallery who can be contacted at sarah@butterworthpaintings.co.uk or you can see all the work Howard has done by going to www.thebutterworthgallery.com

 

Rubber hooks!!

     Will losing his 5th fish in a row!!! Sorry about the expletives at the end!

A disapointing day today with only 1 fish to show for all our efforts, however we seem to be able to hook the fish but not land them! I've seen it many times over the years where no matter what you do the fish fall off, the only consolation is that you have had the rush of blood as you feel the fish pull line off the reel but a lost fish is just that and it wont count on my returns unfortunatly.

But it was good to see a rise in water height so this should bring fresh fish into the river and with settled conditions we will have good water right into next week.

Heavy rain!

                        Another good fish swims away at Carlogie

It rained heavily for the first time today, so hopefully we will get a good rise in the height and have good water all week long. A couple today from Ballogie, both caught by Dr Roy McKeracher from the slips pools, his perserverence paid off as the other 3 rods fishing Ballogie this week decided to have a day out with their families due to the rain.(Bet they will be kicking themselves when I tell them tomorrow!)

Nice photos taken by Craig Mcdonald who is standing in for me this week

Looking forward

                                      Another goes back at Ballogie

I only managed 3 half days last week so I don't have too much to report but hopefully I can manage a full week this week. It was good to hear that my Franc N Snaelda fly continued to catch fish.

 Seeing more and more fish like this one, hopefully they will survive till spawning time.

Hopefully this week the runs of fish should get better and new fish will fill up the pools, it's traditionally from this week we change from heavy spring tactics to more float/sink tip setups with small doubles rather than heavy tubes but as the water is so cold we will maybe still be on the heavy artillery!!

Pickin away!

                           Nice one from the Sands, Ballogie

A quite day yesterday, but a few caught today. A cracker from the Slips at 14lb covered in sea lice, then 2 from Carlogie, 1 at 12lb from the Boat pool and another fish of 7lb. 

                             Black Frances, Deadly spring fly

With rain forcast over the Bank holiday weekend hopefully we will see a big rise in water and get back to proper spring fishing with big water, big flies and big fish!!!

Commontys 25lber!!!

Ingolfur with his second from the Blue Chair, Commonty. Photo courtesy of Fiskebloggen.com

6 inches of snow!

                     Nice fish from the Top Gannets pool, Ballogie

With 6" of snow over night the coming days should produce better conditions on all the beats, the river has slowly risen today, up around 4" which doesn't sound a lot but given the conditions last week it's like fishing another river! However with the cold air the river temperature has dropped and we are seeing less fish moving in the pools.

 I just received a call from Ian at Commonty to say that they have had a Sea liced fish weighing around 6lbs, this fish was caught on one of my Red Francis flies which seem to be doing the trick at the moment, the fight and capture of this fish was filmed so hopefully i'll get a copy to show you all.

It's raining!!

              Lars Terkildsen playing a fish in the Boat pool, Carlogie

I'm glad to see the end of march! It has been a very hard month on the Dee and I must congratulate all the anglers on the Ballogie beats for perservering in such horrific conditions, the low water combined with record breaking daytime temperatures made the chances of catching fish very difficult, however we still managed to beat the 5 year average for march on all 3 beats which is a fantasic achievement given the conditions.

As I am writing this it is raining outside and the weather forcast is giving rain for all day tomorrow, then with snow on the hills forcast for monday night/tuesday morning we may have the lift in water that we've been needing now for weeks, the pools have lots of fresh fish lying in them but they are hard to catch due to the low water, if it does rise I can see catches improving dramatically. As we enter the prime spring months we hopefully will see bigger runs of fresh fish entering the river daily and given rain we will continue to have good sport for the rest of the spring.

Also sorry for not posting as often as I would like, but i'm not at work at the moment due to ongoing complications from Lymes disease. I've been signed of for the next 2 weeks but if I feel better at all i'll be back on the banks as soon as I can!!