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

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! 

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.

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

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.

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

"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.