Salmon fishing on the Dee

The River Dee is internationally famous for its salmon fishing, and especially so for its multi-sea winter spring salmon, with anglers coming from all over the world to fish it. It has historically been thought of as arguably the top spring Salmon River in the world (Feb-May) however there is a 50 year cyclical pattern, where records go back 300 years, which sees the abundance of stocks swing from Spring fish to Summer fish. Spring fish stocks have been rising steadily over the last few years with the Dee producing more spring fish than any other river in the United Kingdom.

In addition to the increasing run of spring fish, the river also provides some excellent summer fishing for salmon, grilse and sea trout. Given reasonable water levels the river can provide fantastic sport through the summer months with strong runs of fresh fish coming forward.

The River Dee is renowned for the success of its conservation policies where the voluntary conservation code sees 98% of salmon caught and released by anglers. Salmon stocks crashed in the 1990's to under 2,800 salmon landed however 2010 and 2011 saw the best rod catches for salmon in 30 years with approximately 18,000 salmon caught during these two seasons. This support from anglers to help preserve the stocks of wild salmon will help produce good numbers of wild juvenile stocks which will embark on their epic marine phase of life to feed and grow prior to returning to the river to produce another generation of wild fish.

Allan Smith with a 25 lb Springer with the River height at 75 inches-quite an achievement.