River Deveron Fishing Reports 2010 Season

[FRH]

The river continues to fall slowly. Depending on which gauge you look at it is +5 or +2 inches.

Avochie landed salmon last week and lost one yesterday at the net- whilst the angler was trout fishing.

The rest of the river is working away. Wrack beat returned two on the fly Yesterday at 6 and 8lb. The middle river has done ok at the start of this week despite the snow on Monday and Tuesday. Infact Netherdale reports 9 fish for the first two days of the week.

Still daily rods available into June and weekly tickets on private beats available through June and July.

Frank

[FRH]

The river has faired better than neighbours and has had a better than average spring.

Salmon continue to come off higher beats and Avochie seems to always produce fish. Two sea liced fish on Saturday.

Sea trout have arrived in bigger numbers than we have seen for some years and sport can be hectic if you are in the right place.
If we can keep water levels down and get some warmer weather we are looking good for the next few weeks.

FRH

[FRH]

The River levels held up well until the middle of June and then they dropped away to around 8 inches below normal.
Despite this most middle to higher beats have had the best sea-trout catches since 2002. This is despite many beats being un-let due to poor previous seasons. Day tickets, Keepers and guests have all had tremendous sport with the majority of these fish weighing 3- 5 lb.
Small salmon around the 6-7 lb mark were still running the river but not in great numbers.
The best fish since my last post was 19lb from Upper Netherdale.

15 July saw a rise in levels from -8 to +1foot 7 inches. This has brought a few fish in and encouraged fish in lower beats to run higher up.
Lower beats have reported loosing several fish over 20 lb since the rise in levels.
The hot and sunny weather returned over the weekend but today we have very heavy rain and levels are rising already this morning.

Rivers to our West and North are seeing decent grilse numbers in the last couple of weeks so this rain has just come at the right time to encourage these to enter the system as they make their way along the coast towards us.

FRH

[FRH]

Things have not been going well in the last month.
We seem to have a lack of grilse and very few salmon are being caught.

Our water levels have been up and down and this has not helped. July 21st saw levels at six feet and yesterday we were just over four feet.
The grilse we did start to see a couple of weeks ago have headed for the hills and a handfull of upper beats managed some totals in double figures but most beats have missed out completely.
All our neighbours have seen a grilse run so it is strange we have missed out.

We will hope that this rise in levels brings some fish into the river if they are there to come of course.

Frank

[FRH]

Well the grilse arrived six weeks after they hit the Spey. Unusual but welcome none the less.

We have had a huge run of fish all in the 3-4lb range and in excellent condition- with only a few showing red vent syndrome. Our main problem has been too much water. Just as levels approach normal and the fish slow down we get a rise in levels and off they go again for the head waters.

The middle to end of August saw excellent catches and some big fish reported at 20,21 and 24 lb. As we have entered September the runs of bigger fish have slowed down but beats still report weeks of up to 43 fish for the week.
Mid September and the grilse are still running with what appears to be our " summer " fish about the 8-10 lb mark.
If this continues the season will be over before the back end run arrives in November/December.

Frank

[FRH]

Wow.

The river is full of fish . The last six weeks has been something else.
Obviously you can not have everyhing in life - so the problem has been too much water. Levels have been up and down several times in a single week and the fish have motored up to the headwaters without stopping to catch a breath let alone a fly.
We even had a spate of 13 foot above normal on 23 September. This has moved all the bottom again and we are having to learn the pools allover again.
Grilse have been in abundance and as at today 11 October they are stioll running in huge numbers. We have also caught many 20-24 lb fish and a gentleman in his eighties landed a fish at 30lb.

In the last few weeks many beats are posting catch figures well above 40 for the week and indeed one beat has around 100 for a week.

A touch of frost or a small coloured rise in Levels now would just set up the last few weeks as we are low and clear at the moment.

Frank