Another reasonably accurate forecast last week, the rain towards the end of the week pushed the river up a couple of feet. Unfortunately this small rise coincided with SEPA having communication problems so the gillies could not inform their guests on the expected trends. Next week the forecast is for more unsettled weather, Monday and Tuesday will have a few showers, Wednesday will be brighter and Thursday showers again. The tides are building all week, an excellent fishing forecast.

Catches were fairly good with Saturday’s rise helping finish the week with a flourish.

Gordon Castle ended with forty-two, the majority salmon but with a sprinkling of grilse. Many thanks to Ian Tennant and his team for the photographs.

Orton had an excellent week, the Reeve party finished the week with almost thirty salmon and a handful of seatrout.

Delfur were again in the mid teens, just one picture this week.

Rothes had a bakers dozen, mostly salmon with a solitary grilse.

Craigellachie, Wester Elchies and Kinermony all had around half a dozen.

Aberlour had a successful week, thanks to Ken Davies for keeping me informed and providing me with pictures.

Carron had an excellent week ending up with fourteen.

Grantown started the week slowly but the lift in the water brought a lift in the catches. There was close to a dozen salmon landed the best a 21lbs fish from Tarric Mor by Craig Carswell. Again the sea trout catches were over fifty for the week including two over seven pounds. Pictured below John Gray’s seven pound sea trout.

Kinchurdy had yet another good week with over forty sea trout and four salmon landed. Regular tenant’s Kevin Shanks and his son were pleased with their catch, Kevin wrote, “What a week, 43 sea trout and four salmon for four rods. As normal great advice from gillie, Bobby Hall, his help and advice is second to none a fantastic place to fish” Thanks to Kevin for the following pictures.

Nature notes, as expected from the spectacular growth the Delfur swallows have fledged.

The post Week Commencing 26th June 2017. appeared first on Spey Fishery Board.

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Last week’s forecast was reasonably accurate, a mixture between sunshine and showers with a coolish wind thrown in for good measure. Next week will be overcast all week with a little rain, perhaps heavier towards the end of the week. The tides peak tonight and there will be no new water for the rest of the week.

It has been quite a quiet week on the river, although most beats having been catching fish, hopefully it just a lull between the spring and summer runs.

Ian Tennant tells me that the Gordon Castle beats finished in the mid teens.

Thanks to Ian for the pictures.

Delfur also finished in the mid teens, again thanks to Mark for his photographs.

Guess what? Rothes finished in the mid teens.

Thanks to Dougie Ross for the use of his pictures.

Wester Elchies had a couple. Davy Brand tels me Kinermony managed three and sent me this photo from the Little Turn.

Carron finished just short of double figures.

Grantown had five salmon. Sea-trout numbers are good with one at 7lbs and two at 6lbs landed this week. So far, about 110 sea-trout have been reported this season, including three fish at 10lbs.

Kinchurdy finished with three salmon and thirty-five sea trout with two into double figures.19th June Thanks to Bobby Hall for the pictures.

Mark Melville sent me couple of pictures of the Delfur swallows, I had to check with him how many days there were between the photographs, I was amazed when he told me they were only three days apart. The parents must be making a great job of feeding them, and the insects must be very nutritious.

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Can I start this weeks report with the tragic news of an angler’s death on the river on Monday? I cannot really write it better than the way Angus Gordon Lennox let me know.

You may have already heard, but if you haven’t I am writing to let you know that we had a tragic accident on the river on Monday. In full it is a horrific story but in summary one of our regular and experienced guests, from Germany, fell into the river in the Lord March pool, when the water was still quite high, and was swept away. Ian Tennant who was not close to him at the time jumped into a boat and with a Herculean effort caught up with him in the Pipe pool, managing to get him ashore in Lower Aultdearg. By this time he had been under water for a considerable amount of time and was unconscious. He was not wearing a life vest.

Ian and Kevin gave him CPR for approximately 30 minutes before the emergency services arrived on site. He was taken by air ambulance to Aberdeen but was pronounced dead soon thereafter.

Kevin’s and in particular Ian’s efforts can only be described as heroic, but as you can imagine they are traumatised and deeply saddened that their efforts were not able to save him. This tragic event has had a huge impact on the whole gillie team and the rest of the estate and on many fishers up and down the river.

Peter Kleine absolutely adored his fishing and was much loved by the team for his charm, enthusiasm, engagement throughout the year with gillies and office staff alike and for being a thoroughly wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and particularly with his wife.

The weather forecast I am told was pretty accurate with a mixture of sunshine and heavy showers. Next week is similar with some sunshine but some heavy showers mid week. The tides are building all week.

Catches, having returned eventually from a week on the Laerdal where the entire river’s catch was twenty-eight fish it shows what a classy river the Spey really is. If anyone is travelling to Norway avoid British Midland who treat their passengers with total disrespect, we found out the flight was cancelled as one of the party’s wives had phoned to find out why our flight was cancelled. BMI staff were in hiding and never showed their faces as we struggled to get a seat on the last SAS flight out tonight. A disgraceful way to treat anyone, livestock transporters treat the animals with more respect.

Gordon Castle finished the week in the mid thirties, it does not seem right to put up pictures this week following Monday’s tragic event.

Orton were in the high twenties and thanks to Richard Hold for this week’s pictures.

Delfur ended up with over thirty fish, I can only add David Wood’s comments.

The Wood party from Lincolnshire were fishing at Delfur this week. They finished the week having just got into the thirties. John Ketchingham, head Ghillie at Hendersyde on Tweed, who came up to have a day’s fishing on Saturday was successful with an 8 pound hen fish from Sourden. First Delfur fish were also caught by Stephen Wrisdale, renowned wildlife artist Clare Shaw, William Haggas and Rosie Sword. It was Rosie Sword’s first ever salmon after years of trying on different rivers. Rosie was presented with a coveted Delfur Badge by her ghillie Grant Morrison. 3 of the 4 Ghillie’s had a cast during the week and each caught a fish, with Davie Macintosh catching the largest fish of the week, a 21 1/2 pound sea liced salmon from Collie.

Rothes had sixteen salmon and five rainbows, which must have been washed into the river following the high water. Pollution incidents like this should be dealt with, with much heavier penalties.

Arndilly also had over thirty fish for the week including their first grilse.

Craigellachie were around the double figure mark. Thanks to Dougie Ross for the use of his pictures.

Aberlour Angling Club were also around the double figure mark. Bruce Cameron had a fish measured at 42” and estimated to be around 29lbs.

I will fill in some of the blanks when I am back in the loop!

Grantown was lightly fished but had at least five salmon the largest was 15lb from Tarric Mor. The seatrout numbers are still growing.

James Lang fishing Kinchurdy wrote he had 2 salmon of 8 and 11lbs and lost another. He went on to say how much he enjoys Kinchurdy with the company of Bobby Hall.

Many thanks to my youngest daughter Melanie for keeping the reports going and keeping an eye on my birds. The Delfur swallows are growing daily.

The post Week Commencing June 12th 2017 appeared first on Spey Fishery Board.

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Last week’s forecast was fairly accurate, but Fridays showers were particularly heavy especially in the Rothes area, the Rothes to Elgin road was closed for a while and parts of the town were partially flooded. The Granty Burn had a small landslide and this caused the river downstream to colour up and become unfishable. The Avon also rose with the localised rain and the river downstream carried some colour. Cue little graphs and Yangtze pictures!

Next week’s forecast is for some more rain, this morning was very warm and sunny but things are changing and there will be rain this evening. The long term forecast shows some rain everyday next week, heaviest on Wednesday. The river is sitting around 18″ and still carrying a little bit of colour. Tides peaked last week and there will be no new water till Thursday night.

Catches: The Spey is fishing well!

The Gordon castle beats finished in the mid eighties. Many thanks to Alex Robertson for his photos, Alex tells me that he was accompanied in his fishing with an Osprey, no photos of the Osprey and Alex reckons he out fished it anyway!

Delfur, mid fifties again, but only half a day lost this week! Mark’s photographs are getting better and better.

Rothes, John Bladon’s party had another successful week finishing like Delfur in the mid fifties.

Easter Elchies report this week and finished in the mid teens.

Craigellachie had a successful week finishing in the twenties. Nigel Arthur seems to appear in quite a lot of the pictures.

Aberlour Angling Association finished with over half a dozen, visiting anglers Tom Robinson and Steve Foster had a great week.

Kinermony finished with eighteen; Robin Taylor was the main man with seven to his own rod.

Carron again fished well with ten landed on Monday and finished the week with close to thirty.

I was pleased to hear from Lionel Main, with some pictures of his successful anglers and a great picture of a Butterfly Orchid.

Grantown continue to catch both salmon and seatrout. Some of the seatrout are of a decent size around the 8lb mark with more of about 6lb.

Kinchurdy are also reporting good numbers of salmon and seatrout. Many thanks to gillie Bobby Hall for his supply of pictures.

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By the wonders of modern technology and a little help by my daughter Melanie I will now attempt to do my weekly report from Silverstone and the British Grand Prix. Ferrari got a well deserved third place! I will now return to salmon fishing.

I will edit and correct any errors when I return to civilisation on Monday!

Well it was certainly uncomfortably warm on Tuesday and Wednesday, but was it a heatwave? Surprisingly the term heatwave has a definition, the Meteorological Organisation’s definition of a heatwave is “when the daily maximum temperature of more than five consecutive days exceeds the average maximum temperature by 5°C. The average is 18.5 so it needed to keep above 23.5 Tuesday-Saturday. So I suppose it was not quite, just an uncomfortable period of a few days to spoil the fishing. Next week’s forecast is to return to some proper weather with some rain mid week some of it quite heavy. Temperatures will reach the mid teens. The tides have peaked and there will be no new water till the following week.

Catches, not surprisingly catches fell away the middle of the week when the water temperature rose by around 6 degrees to approaching 60F. Salmon are cold blooded creatures and a 10% + change in there surrounds has a major effect on their metabolism, they cannot just shed a layer, open a window or turn on the air conditioning.

Gordon Castle were in the high teens. Delfur finished with over thirty and as usual I am grateful to Mark Melville for his photos.

Brian Maclean, Delfur

Maher al Tajir, Big Haddie Delfur

Jack Melville Delfur

Gary Bushnell Delfur

Gary Bushnell again Delfur

Rothes were around the mid teens and Mike says he hates these hot days.

Craigellachie fished well at the start and end of the week when there was a little cloud cover.

Wester Elchies finished with five and Sam said it was hard work.

Carron again fished well and finished the week with ten. Local keeper Gordon Aitchenson landed his first ever salmon and Neil Borthwick for the third season on the trot landed Carron’s 100th fish.

Gordon Aitchison, 1st fish Mid Cast Carron

Neil Borthwick, 100th fish from Carron

Grantown continue to catch both salmon and sea trout and I am grateful to Jimmy for his photos.

John Gray, Sea trout

Kenny Carr, Grantown

The post Week Commencing 29th June 2015 appeared first on Spey Fishery Board.

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Sadly former Craigellachie gillie Peter Wolstencroft lost his battle with lung cancer at the early age of 60. His funeral, last Tuesday was well attended by family friends and fishers. Although Peter had not been on the river for the last 8 years his dry sense of humour and his own style of gillying will I am sure be missed by many that he introduced to salmon fishing on the Spey.

Today, mid summer’s day has been wet, over an inch of rain has fallen in the Aberlour area and already the Avon and Aberlour SEPA gauges are showing a rise. It is hard to predict how much the rise will be. Last week the weather was as predicted overcast, some showers and sunny spells, a right mixture. The coming week is much the same, temperatures struggling to reach much above mid teens, overcast with some rain. Just to cheer everyone up the nights have started to draw in, what ever happened to summer? It must have been those three sunny days in April! The tides have peaked and there will be no new water till the following week. Hopefully the freshet at the start of the week will encourage the fish to continue to run.

Catches, again I am pleased to be able to report that most beats caught fish from Kinchurdy to the sea.

The Gordon Castle Beats had around 35 fish.

Delfur were even better with over 50 fish landed. As usual I am grateful to Mark Melville and Rory Paterson for the use of their photographs.

Twa Stanes, Delfur

Nigel Hawkins Delfur

Edward Hamilton-Ely Delfur

Cocker with grilse

Chris Rothwell Delfur

Chris Rothwell again

Nicky Waterworth Delfur

Ali Cuthbert Delfur

Rothes had another good week with twenty-five landed, Mike Ewan was saying he would like to see a rise in the river height; his rain dancing must be effective!

I hear the beats below Craigellachie also were close to fifty fish.

Craigellachie had a good week with sixteen landed, I am grateful to Dougie Ross, Mike Broadey and team for the pictures.

Tom Robinson Broom Isle, Craigellachie

Nigel Arthur Grilse, Craigellachie

Nigel Arthur, Slabs, Craigellachie

Jonathon Askwith Boat Pool Craigellachie

Ian Henderson Craigellachie

Ian Henderson, Tunnel, Craigellachie

Upstream Aberlour Angling Association continue to catch fish and todays rise will help the start of next week.

Kinermony and Delagyle both caught fish, Kinermony having at least 8 by tea time on Monday and finishing the week with 15.

Simon Martin had his second week of the season and did even better than last time with 16 landed. Ian Borthwick was kind enough to send me his photo.

Simon Martin Carron.

Grantown Angling Association had around a dozen salmon but at least 50 seatrout most around the 4-pound mark with some better specimens also recorded. Kinchurdy also had more seatrout than salmon but traditionally the June tenants are more interested in seatrout than salmon!

I received this picture showing a canoeist leaving the river not from one of the recognised landing spots! Not sure I would class this as responsible access, if he cannot avoid a tree what chance a wading angler?

Whoops, Responsible Access?

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