Dee - Rapports

River Dee Fishing Report – Week 24 commencing 7^th July 2025

The week of the third heatwave came and anglers were out early mornings and late evenings on the river, the majority of  the beats decided not to have fish from the middle of the week due to the high air and water temperatures to protect the health of the fish and not cause them any thermal stress and also no doubt minimise the sunstroke risk for their fishers,  as we are really not used to temperatures in the late 20’s in our corner of Scotland!

Around the beats

Altries got off the mark for their season this week with ghillie David Clement letting me know that William, who is a syndicate member there, landed a 3lb grilse on a size 12 Stoats Tail fly on Tuesday, well done to him.

Park beat welcomed guests from Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland last week, who had to fish around the hot weather/ low water conditions. The highlight of the week was a lovely fresh 11lber landed by Park regular John Fraser on Wednesday, this was the biggest salmon on the river for the week, congratulations to John.

Other catches, all by Park regulars, included:

Hari Formston who landed 2x grilse

Pat Muldowney who landed 1x grilse

Callum Conner who landed 1x grilse

Nick Warren who also landed 1x grilse. 

William Foster commented that the forecast for the week ahead is a little cooler with some rain forecast, which will be better, but we still need a lot of rain to top the river up.

At Banchory ,Barrie Thrussell and David Bizley had fish to their rods on Monday and Hugh Law had the one on Tuesday, all fresh grilse.

At Cairnton &  Middle Blackhall Brian Brogan mentioned in his beat report that the topic of conversation had mostly revolved around yet another heatwave and that the east coast of Scotland has really missed out on the much needed rain so far this year but again we all keep the fingers crossed that the weather will break, it will at some point and it did very briefly on Monday with thunder and lashing rain for half an hour. On the fishing side of things, he said it was surprisingly productive given the conditions with Brad Collis’s party all managing a grilse a piece and losing a couple. (Brad Collis, Alan Leigh and Andrew Croft) Davie Ryback also had a grilse and Richard Hutchinson had one. They were all around the 4lb bracket and liced with the early mornings producing before the air and water temperatures crept up, successful flies were very small Stoat Tails and Crathie’s doing the trick.

At the Ballogie Beats I heard that Caroline Watson caught a 3lb salmon at Carlogie, she has been coming to Ballogie for over 30 years  all the way from Shrewsbury in England. Other anglers had grilse to their rods at Commonty and Ballogie, both of 3lbs. 

Birse ghillie Martin Robson let me know that they had 3 salmon for their visiting anglers last week, Derek Blaney had their first of the week, a 3lb grilse from Belwade Pool on a small sparse double, fished off a full floater.  Following on from that Colin McGillivray landed a fish of approximately 8lb in Red Rock later in the week on a super-fast sink tip coupled with a small Black Francis Tube, then Donald Maclachan completed their count with a very fresh grilse of around 3lb from Island Pool on a Silver-Con D Conehead, photo attached and you can see the fish is like a mirror.

Other beats with fish to their rods this week were Lower Crathes & West Durris, Crathes Castle , Little Blackhall & Inchmarlo, Sluie, Headinch & Cambus O’May and Crathie  Please do drop me a note if you were fishing at any of these places and I can add in details next week.

We all hope that the  water levels come up over the next few weeks and if  you are thinking of coming to  fish later in July then there is availability on FishPal here - https://www.fishpal.com/search/fisheries/in/dee?from=15/07/2025&to=29/07/2025

We have launched the ticket sales for the Fundraising Ceilidh for the River Dee Trust - Friday 31st October 2025 at the Legion in Banchory at £25 pp.

• Book a table of 10, or individual tickets on the Eventbrite link  here
• Email me if you want to book and have an invoice generated for payment, rather than book via Eventbrite.

Tight lines.

Debbie Cooper

[email protected]