Fishing Reports

This week so far

See each day's largest fish and individual beat catches on our Latest Catches page which is updated each time a ghillie uses our automatic telephone reporting system.

Last week

Last updated: Sunday 13th May

It has been another very cold, wet and a wild week here on the Findhorn with several days of heavy rain mid week, which certainly gave river levels another big lift by Thursday morning. In fact, much of the rain that had fallen on the lower ground had fallen as snow on the hills by Friday. Therefore, as the day progressed, the river began to rise yet again later in the day, making fishing conditions fairly difficult for the rest of the day. It was pretty much the same story for Saturday with river levels running very high, but with good water clarity. Saturday was really quite pleasant weather wise and the warmth of the Spring sun made it feel much more comfortable after the previous days of Baltic conditions! The river was actually falling away quite nicely for a while, but soon started to rise again by late afternoon.

Glenferness Estate ended the week with a respectable 9 fish to their rods. David Stewart-Howitt and his friend Alastair Buchanan enjoyed a great day on Levrattich on Monday with 2 fish. Alastair Buchanan hooked and released a big fish of 35" or around 18 lbs. on the top of Levrattich Pool on a small red and black Snaelda. David Stewart-Howitt hooked and released a really cracking fresh fish of around 13 lbs. from the Upper Streenoch Pool on an Orange tube fly. Philip Bowden-Smith caught two on Tuesday, 16 lbs. in the Upper Sawpit and 12 lbs. in the Boat Pool.

Dr. Michael Leach arrived on Wednesday evening and it did not take him long to hook a fresh fish of around 7 lbs. on a 1" Cascade tube fly from the Garden Pool on Mini Daltra. On Thursday morning, he hooked another lovely deep fresh cock fish of around 15 lbs. in the Island Pool on Mini Daltra on a small 1/2" Snaelda. A little later on and after briefly hooking and losing a big fish in Chain Pool, he was almost immediately rewarded with another solid pull and it was on. This time, it was a fish of around 13 lbs. hooked on the 1/2" Snaelda. A little further upstream and his friend, Peter Duncan, was also having success and hooked a fresh fish of around 7 lbs. from the Levrattich Pool. Michael Leach managed to hook and release another fish of around 7 lbs. in the Island Pool on Saturday, just before the river started to rise into another big spate. This was probably due to snow melting off the hills, thus making fishing conditions really impossible by late afternoon. However, despite the testing conditions, it was really a very good result and there were certainly more fish starting to show up on all of the Glenferness Beats.

Lethen Estate reports as follows: A testing week for experienced rods this week. The week started well for Brian Emery on Dunearn when he caught and released a 12 lb. fish out of Rowland's with a quick cast at lunchtime after being ghillie all morning. Unfortunately, that was the only fish for the week, despite the odd tickle here and there in very high water. John Waddington on Daltra/Altnahara ended with a blank despite losing three fish during the week, one of which was nearly ready for netting. The day lets had some success. Paul Kelly is off the mark for the season on Wednesday with a 12 lb. sea-liced fish out of Englishman's. He also had a good offer in Deadman's and reported seeing fish in most of the regular hot spots that were fishable. Paul also reported that the bigger pools fished well with the good water and that a sink tip and a 1 inch black/yellow tube seemed to do the trick. Brian Emery also had some success catching and releasing a 14.5 lb. fish in Deadman's on Altnahara on Thursday. Further details can be viewed on the news page on www.lethenestate.co.uk shortly after 9:30 a.m. on Monday.

Down on the Lower Beats, Jimmy Maclean tells me that his rods fishing on Upper Home Beat, Darnaway, ended the week with 6 fish and the best fish of around 9 lbs. He was also telling me that he witnessed a very big run of fish going through the beat all day on Saturday, in fact, the biggest run he has seen since early March.

On Altyre Estate, Robin Birkbeck caught a fresh sea-liced fish of around 8 lbs from Soldier's Hole on Wednesday morning.

As always, I would be delighted to hear from any anglers fishing on the Findhorn with any stories and photos they would like to share, which I can update onto the weekly Fishing Reports page. Please email them to ian@speycaster.net.

Beat catches reported
(week ending 12th May)
SALMON & GRILSE: Altyre 1, Glenferness 9, Lethen 3.
Total: 13 Largest: Glenferness 18lbs
SEA TROUT: None reported
TROUT: None reported





Salmon fishing on the River Findhorn
Judy Grant holds up a superb deep summer salmon of around 12lbs from the Scur pool on Altyre Estate in early July.

Season review

The 2011 season started off looking very promising with ample supplies of snow melt in the Monhadliath Mountains after a prolonged cold spell through the early winter months, which filled up the corries with plenty of snow and ice. However, the predicted cold spell through February to March simply did not happen and by the end of March air and water temperatures soon began to rise after a sudden warm spell, which took away much of the rivers' snow melt reserve. Therefore, by early April, much of the snow melt had disappeared and it became very apparent that there was a very strong run of early multi-sea winter salmon moving into the river system. There were many fish in the mid-twenties of pounds, including a magnificent fish of around 24 lb, the second largest recorded in recent years from Altyre Estate, which was caught and released in the first week of April. With water temperatures reaching 42 degrees F during early April, these Spring salmon were soon up and over the Poolie Falls at Sluie and dispersed into the Middle and Upper Beats, with fish being caught as far up as Tomatin!

The weather continued to stay dry and hot right through April and therefore, water levels began to fall away, despite the fact that big numbers of these multi-sea winter salmon continued to pour into the river system and by late April the Middle Beats around Lethen and Glenferness were simply stuffed full of fish, but proving difficult to tempt in these hot and low water conditions. Not only did these low and warm water conditions make fishing difficult, but it also brought on an outbreak of Saprolegnia in the fish, a fungal disease that occurs naturally in fresh water. This fungal spore took hold in the cuts and abrasions that the fish had sustained from passing over sharp gravel and bedrock under the very low water conditions. With this and increased stress, there were inevitable casualties as a result of the low water conditions which stretched into May. The disease is often fatal and is commonly associated with early season low water conditions and was found in several other rivers in Scotland last year. However, by all accounts there was a really large stock of spawning multi-sea winter salmon found in the upper river in the Autumn and it appears that the disease has not had a significant impact on the spawning stock in the river.

By mid-May, weather conditions changed and we saw some prolonged spells of heavy rain and on the back of these improved river levels and conditions, catches began to improve. Thus it was evident that there remained a good number of multi-sea winter salmon throughout the river system. These improved river conditions also seemed to flush out the remains of the Saprolegnia and by June much of the disease seemed to have dispersed.

As we moved into July, the weather became more unsettled once again and with improved river levels we started to see a strong run of multi-sea winter summer salmon and grilse. However, the grilse run never really materialised in large numbers, which seemed to be in common with most of the other Scottish rivers, which was somewhat disappointing after the runs of the 2010 season. However, some of the Middle Beats around Lethen, Glenferness and Drynachan enjoyed some really terrific sport throughout July, including a great week of twenty-six fish to the Player party fishing on the Dunearn Beat on Lethen Estate. August also remained quite unsettled by and large and catches remained consistently good, with some beats enjoying record catches. Mark Lloyd, Simon Evans and Robert Penn, were sharing two rods on Daltra/Altnahara Beat, Lethen Estate in mid-August and took the beat record to an amazing thirty-eight fish for the week. Even as we moved into September, the weather remained very unsettled for much of the month and runs of fresh fish kept on moving into the system offering good sport for most beats right up until the last day on September 30th.