Better than average!

                              Chris Adams with a stunner from Carlogie

Well thats the end of the first month of the season and it's turned out better than expected! Ballogie and Commonty have beaten their 5 year average and Carlogie has equalled it's 5 year average, pretty good considering we lost 7 days fishing to grue this month.

Commonty has had it's best February since Ballogie Estates started managing it, landing 13 for the month, it may not sound a lot but considering back in 2006 it had a 5 year average of only 46 fish for the whole season. Ballogie had 21 which equalled last years total for February and Carlogie had 7 for the month, which is 1 better than last year, Had we been able to fish everyday the catches for the month would have been far greater but we have no control over the weather!!

                       The first Spring fish caught out of the Ghillies pool

The future's bright!!

                                               Mattias and Tim

We have the privileged to have 2 students from Sweden working at the  Ballogie beats for the next 8 weeks, they are here to learn about what we do as Ghillies in Scotland. They are studying at Alvdalen college in a full time course to become a Salmon Fishing Guide, hopefully they will see how good the river Dee is in the spring.

Today produced more fish, however we seemed to lose more than we landed with 4 lost at Ballogie!!
Today it was Dr Patrick who scored with a 12lber from Commonty which also christened his new Scott Mackenzie rod!! Tony Black was also had a fish from Commonty, hooking it just before Dr Patrick hooked his. Carlogie had it's biggest fish so far with a 22lber caught in the Village pool, the photo of this fish will be posted tomorrow.

A good start to the week

                       Roar's second fish from the Bridge pool at Ballogie

Today saw a good head of fish throughout the Ballogie Beats, Commonty was first off the mark with a fish from the Garden pool followed by 2 from Ballogie and 1 from the Boat pool at Carlogie, then in the afternoon Tony Black took one from the Garden pool at Commonty and Ernie Hemmings got a cracker from the Top Gannnets weighing 16lbs.

              Tom Marshall with a Beauty from the Lower Inchbare at Ballogie

With rain this morning, hopefully the river will not drop any further but with a record day for air temperature set for tomorrow we may see the levels drop quickly as we approch the weekend.

Been a while!!

Sorry for not posting anything for over a week but I'm just too busy tying flies for orders!!

Week 7 was a good week for the Ballogie Beats producing 12 Springers of the 3 beats, Ballogie had 5, Carlogie had 3 and Commonty had 4.

                 David Macdonalds first of the season from the Top Gannets

This week however proved a lot tougher with only 6 fish from the 3 beats and all from Ballogie. High water along with record daytime temperatures ment that we saw many fish just running straight through the beats, I can't ever recall the water temperature being so warm in February, it peaked at 45f on thursday, needless to say we now have run out of snow melt and the river is now a "Spate river" I am already doing a rain dance as the river will now drop fast.

                 Roar Lindso returning a fish from the Bridge pool at Ballogie

A Unique Opportunity!

A prime week has become available at Commonty! After a cancellation we can now offer week 22 - 28th May - 2nd June 2012 for 2 rods, the price for the week is £420 + VAT @ 20% per rod. To get on any beat in May on the Dee is almost impossible so grab this unique opportunity while you can. If you are interested, please contact me directly at info@theghilliesflybox.co.uk 

                  Jean Marshall with a springer from the Boat pool, Carlogie

Commonty strikes again!

                       Tom Marshall with a late one at the Boat Pool Carlogie


Just heard from Ian Fraser that his rods had 2 fish from the Garden pool today, both weighed in at 8lbs, Ballogie was also on the scoresheet with 1 at 12lbs from the Sands pool. Conditions were tough due to the high winds we have but with a 6" rise in water this morning we knew we had a good chance, I think high winds will effect us for most of the week but thankfully they are predominatly downstream!

                       Dr Patrick with one of a brace caught at Commonty

                            Caught on one of my Willie Gunn Snaelda's

                        

Fish at last!

A cracking springer one of three caught on Ballogie on Saturday, this one came from Lower Inchbare and weighed in at 10lbs, another one at 12lb came out of the Bullworks and Kevin Fraser had a 10lber from a pool we are fishing this season to see what can be caught in it before deciding how much work we have to do to fish it properly, again the Willie Gunn Snaelda did the trick!

                                       Lee Hooke with a 13lb Rawner!

Today produced 3 fish from the beats, 2 from Ballogie and 1 from Carlogie. one fish from the Top Gannet at 8lb and one from the Lower Inchbare also 8lb, Carlogie's fish came from the Boat pool at last light and came in at 10lb.
Still seeing a few Rawners and Baggots with 4 Rawners in 2 days and 2 Baggots today

                            Mackenzie DTX 14ft with Cascade Snaelda