Report 19th June
With the recent rain ending our spring drought, salmon have started to make an appearance with fish seen showing through the lower and middle river beats. Over the past few weeks, the river has been very unsettled with the first week of rain resulting in mostly coloured water on the lower river but once the river settled and cleared, salmon and sea trout have started to be reported.
last week Bernie McCauly landed a 15lb salmon on Newbie Beat. On Hoddom, John Bamford and party had salmon of 10lb and 7lb , Paul Gamba caught a 10lb salmon and two sea trout at 2lb, local angler Alan Woodhouse landed a salmon of 13lb, J McLay had a grilse at 4lb plus two sea trout at 1.5lb, George Renwick had a 3lb sea trout and Sean Cullen landed a 13lb salmon.
There have also been reports of sea trout from the middle and upper river including a fresh run sea trout of 3lb for local young angler Will Falconer caught on Castlemilk RFT and a 4lb sea trout for John Cameron from Moffat caught on Royal Four Towns.
After a tough spell due to conditions, the trout fishing picked up again in early June following the rain with some good hatches of BWO's and olive uprights bringing fish back to the surface during both afternoons and evenings. As well as resident brown trout, there have also been sea trout reported rising during hatches on the upper river with Scott Rutherford landing a sea trout of 2lb and seeing other showing during the afternoon. Rising sea trout are typically very bold making large and splashy rise patterns as they take flies making them obvious.
Over the weekend, it's expected that air temperatures will rise to mid-twenties which will likely end most of the afternoon hatches but the fishing during the evenings will be good, as will the sea trout fishing after dark. Next week is looking unsettled again with rain expected most days at some point and as we get closer to July, we should be seeing the start of the main salmon and grilse run appearing on the lower beats.
Early July we have our first sea trout night on the upper river which helps raise funds for the Annan DSFB's youth angling development work. Details on the Fish Annan Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16WUmR2Ler/?mibextid=wwXIfr
For more information on fishing the Annan for sea trout check out the guide to sea trout fishing on the Fish Annan website.
https://fishannan.wordpress.com/2024/02/16/sea-trout-fishing/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR43RLIVao15__9Oyt1vrMixmc8R6YO4pEGE44zbb1bscrvKv2N4cQuAXzP4AA_aem_OD3kCzY606oKve0hUviHZw
Tight lines
Michael Fearns
07710331079
We would like to thank the beats, angling clubs and owners who have contributed to this report by providing their time and information as this report would not be possible without your help and support. If you would like to share any interesting stories or pictures from your time fishing on the River Annan for the purposes of this report, please feel free to contact us here.
