Picking away!

                                 Another fish from the Bridge pool

It's still thin pickings on the river so far this week but we managed 2 today 1 at 12lb from Ballogie and 1 at 12lb from Carlogie, the Franc N Snaelda is doing the damage again today!!

                                                          Franc N Snaeldas! The fish just love em!!

As well as the Springers we had 12 kelts today, which are keeping us entertained until we run into some fresh fish. The weather looks set to change before the weekend with some rain forcast and also some snow for the weekend and into next week. The river temperature has risen to 40f which is the highest it's been so far this year, if it can stay at this we should hopefully get some fresh fish into the river and they should quickly move upstream.

                                         Peter Lonsdale with another fish caught on the Franc N Snaelda!!

Roll on March!

                                     Mattias and Ludvig, our new Swedish students from Alvdalen college.

That's February over with thank goodness!! It's been a struggle to say the least but looking at the figures for all 3 beats it's not all doom and gloom, Carlogie and Commonty both hit their 5 year average but Ballogie was just 2 couple behind the average which should be easy to catch up. Conditions for the month have not helped bring a lot of fish into the system, we had good water at the start of the month but in the last 2 weeks the water has dropped and got very cold. Hopefully March will see a change in conditions and lots of new fish entering the river.
We need a rise in water to get the fish out of the sea and away from the seals who seem do be causing havoc with the fish, nearly all the fish we landed this week had seal damage of some sort on them, these were the lucky ones that got past the seals. The river board has installed a seal scarer in the river to prevent them following the fish into the river, hopefully this will be successful and keep the seals out of the river.

                         The fisrt Grue of the year!! We managed to start fishing at lunchtime when the temperature rose.

A better week on the Ballogie beats with 10 fish landed. Carlogie had 4, Ballogie 3 and Commonty 3.
Still quite a few Kelts on the go,  Peter Turnham fishing Carlogie had over 20 for his week but no springers! We had 2 springers from Frasers pool this week! All the work that myself, Ian and my wife Tracey did to this pool in the winter has been well worth it, I can see this pool producing alot more fish this season due to all the work we did taking all the overhanging branches off it all the way down the pool.

                                                                      A good fish from Commonty

A tough week

                                              
                                                             A completely frozen Franc N Snaelda

It's not the best of weeks with only 3 fish caught on the Ballogie beats, just 1 off each beat! The river temperature is the biggest problem, at only 34c the fish are not moving up through the river at any speed and as the water keeps dropping the fish are more likely to stay in the lower beats when they come in from the sea.

                                                                Another good fish from the Bridge pool!

We need a change in weather to stand a chance of drawing fish out from the sea, looking at the forcast we will see a slight rise in daytime temperatures which could result in some snow melt. With a full moon nearly here we should see some high spring tides and this may bring fresh fish into the river. I hope!!!

 

Nae Fish!!!!

                                                                                                                                                                                           An elusive Dee Springer!! Yes this is what one looks like!!! 15lbs of solid silver caught on a Franc N Snaelda by Craig Macdonald.

To say it's a struggle to get a fish this week is an understatement! You only have to look at Fishdee's catches to now there aren't many fish in the system. However we never give up and just keep hoping we run into a pod of fish moving up, this happened yesterday and we hooked 3 Springers at Ballogie but only landed 1!! We lost a good fish in the Slips pool when the fish decided to go around the big rocks at the start of the pool and took the shooting head and all the running line with it, all we got back was some very frayed backing and an empty wallet!

                                                         A long line over the Ghillies pool at Ballogie

Commonty managed a fish today from the Ripples pool, the 10lb fish was landed by local angler Gavin Ramsey. Ballogie and Carlogie saw action from Kelts and another Baggot from Carlogie.
With a stiff SE wind the conditions are far from perfect and with nightime temperatures set to tumble we may see the first serious grue of the year, I only hope we can hang on to the cloud cover which should help keep the temperature up.

                                                                                   Baltic!!

The last cast!!!

After a really tough week on the river it pays to keep positive and never give up! We had almost finished on Saturday and packed away some of the rods when Dennis decided to set up his son's rod and try out his Skagit line. Just as we were heading to the bridge pool we saw kelts leaping all over the place! I said "That's a fresh fish just arrived in the pool and it's stirring up the kelts, just go and cast to it". Dennis waded out and began to fish, 3 casts later we were rewarded with a cracking spring salmon! This was literally the last cast of the week and it was great to finish on a high note.

Waiting Patiently!

 

With such mild temperatures we are expecting some high water due to snow melt at the start of next week. Hopefully this will bring in some much needed new fish. The water temperature is rising and it is possible we could have over 40f  on Monday but looking at the weather forecast for the end of next week it is looking like we could get another cold blast from Europe.

 

 

 

Extreme (ly Bloody Cold) Fishing!!

                                                 You don't have to be mad to fish in February! But it helps!!

Conditions this week have been good up to today! This morning we arrived at the river to find an icy Easterly wind blasting upstream, then it started to snow and then we had horizontal snow and then we had driving horizontal snow and then it got steadily WORSE!! The air temperature never rose above 0.5c and with the wind chill felt more like -10!!  Fair to say that the rods put in a great performance today braving the elements but to no avail, only Kelts for all their efforts!

A good fish from Ballogie

 

The weather forecasters are predicting the snow will ease overnight and turn to rain leaving a warm westerly wind and temperatures of 7-8 degrees, this could mean a big melt and high water for Friday and Saturday.

 

Ready to go Back!

 

 

 

 

 

Double figures!

Lee Hooke with a nice fish from Lower Inchbare, Ballogie

 

We've had a great week at Ballogie with a total catch of 7 springers finishing off with 3 on Saturday, 3 out of the 4 rods caught a fish! We are seeing more and more fish in the pools and the conditions have been perfect for us.

 

Kevin Fraser with a cracker from Commonty, caught in the Garden pool

 

The total catch this week for the 3 beats was 10 Salmon, Commnty had 2 and Carlogie only had 1 but it was all action with lots of kelts being caught, over 20  kelts just on Saturday from Carlogie. What is interesting is just how many cock kelts we are catching! It was always a rare sight to see a cock kelt but we've had 5 this week including 1 over 20lbs in the Bullworks pool. 

 

Tom Marshall playing another fish, Tom had a great 3 days at Ballogie, landing 3 Springers.