River Dee Fishing Reports 2012

[ken@fishdee]

FishDee 2012 season review part 1.​

FishDee beats have reported 6707 salmon and grilse and 1088 sea trout for the 2012 fishing season. In terms of the salmon and grilse catch, the 2012 season total shows a 23.8% decrease on 2011 and a 2.8 % increase on the 5 year average for FishDee beats. Catches reported per month through the season were as follows Feb 313, Mar 233, Apr 494, May 762, Jun 820, Jul 1155, Aug 1041, Sep 1192 and October 697. The spring period Feb to May, showed a 38.4 % decrease on 2011, summer period, Jun to Aug a 1% increase on 2011, and the autumn period, Sept and Oct, a 20% reduction on 2011. To provide some context it has to be said the 2012 salmon rod catch was in fact the third best in the last 20 years, with 2010 the best return in 20 years and 2011 the second best return in 20 years. The sea trout catch in 2012 was reported as 1088 against last year’s 1501 and a 5 year average of 1591 however there is a trend for widely fluctuating annual catches for sea trout historically. It should be pointed out there are a number of beats that do not report catches on the FishDee website and the full rod catch for the River Dee in 2012 will be quite a bit higher than shown on the FishDee website. Rod bookings made on the FishDee website have been really excellent in 2012 with a healthy increase in bookings over the excellent performance in 2011. Traffic to the website is now over 2.5 million hits annually with the website providing an exceptional one stop resource for finding angling opportunities on Deeside for local, national and international anglers. It also provides a wide range of contact details for many businesses in Deeside that support angling tourism.

Richard Thomas with a Dee Springer in February from Crathes Beat

The salmon fishing season opened on Wednesday the 1st of February with the well supported opening ceremony taking place at Ballogie, and the Potarch Hotel provided hot snacks and refreshments to the 250 or so assembled guests and media. Both BBC and ITV news teams attended the event and broadcast news from the ceremony. The river was opened this year by television actor and comedian Mr. Paul Whitehouse. Paul advised the audience that he is a regular visitor to Deeside and caught his first ever salmon at Commonty and his first ever salmon on the fly at Carlogie. River Dee Board and Trust chairman Ian Scott announced to the assembled audience that agreement had been received in principle from the Scottish Government for a permanent extension to the fishing season. This would see the river close for fishing on the 15th October for beats downstream from Aboyne Bridge, with beats above Aboyne Bridge closing on the 30th September as per the River Dee conservation code 2012.

Ian Scott presents Charles Jeffrey with a box of flies

The first day of the fishing season saw the river at a low level with water temperature around 1 degree Celsius. There were 30 salmon reported on opening day from FishDee beats with catches from Middle Drum to Dinnet; Invery beat had a red letter day with 8 salmon. The heaviest fish on opening day presented a little dilemma as there were two fish caught that measured 36 inches and only one prize up for grabs. Ballogie Estates head Ghillie Sean Stanton very kindly donated two lovely boxes of flies to Ken Reid to make presentations. River Dee chairman Ian Scott presented visiting angler Charles Jeffrey with his award at the Tor Na Coille hotel and Ken presented the other box of flies to Malcolm Thorne at Lower Blackhall.

Tina Cummings with her prize for first salmon on opening day for a lady angler. The prize of a Guideline salmon fly rod was presented by Lawrie Hickman, who was to catch a 26lb springer at Dess

Fishing conditions were at time difficult in February with a number of days fishing lost to grue. Anglers made the best of the conditions when they were suitable and some reasonable catches were made of both multi sea winter fish and some small salmon. Successful anglers included Richard Thomas, Graeme Arthur, Iain Wood, Dave Gordon, Tina Cummings, Austin Todd, Jeff and Roni Viner, Dr Patrick Taylor, Mark Paterson, Tom and Jean Marshall, Tony and Phillip Black and many more anglers. As the month drew to a close anglers were hopeful that sport would pick up during march however there were concerns of very little snow in the mountains to provide a reservoir and this was to impact significantly for anglers in March due to an unseasonable hot spell of weather which caused the snow to melt and river levels to fall away to low summer levels.

Opening days catch at Invery

March turned out to be a difficult month due to sustained very low and unseasonably warm water temperatures. That said there were some lovely big fish landed with Jamie Hammond enjoying some fantastic sport at Lower Crathes where he landed salmon of 22 and 24lbs on a Friday evening and Saturday morning, which were part of a 5 fish catch he made in 3 days. Fish were running hard through the lower beats to the upper river and Ghillies were using summer tactics and fishing summer lies trying to find fish. Invery continued to provide good sport. Successful anglers included Craig Corbett from Portlethan (25lbs), Willie Roy, Aberlour 20lbs and 11lbs, and Callum Highett with his first Springer of 15lbs. There was a salmon landed at Cairnton on a size 14 executioner; not a fly you would expect to see salmon taking in March. Now it is a matter on record, Aboyne now holds the record of being the warmest place in Scotland in March at 23.6 degrees Celsius. The clocks moved forward to BST towards the end of the month and within days the weather had changed substantially and there was 1 foot of snow on Mount Keen. The humour of the salmon changed and they came back on the take again; much to the relief of Ghillies and anglers.

Jamie Hammond with a 24 lb Springer at Lower Crathes

April heralded the resumption of more seasonal weather with regular snow flurries, frosts and increasing river levels. The stress put on salmon by the fluctuating weather conditions should not be underestimated. In March salmon were lying in the neck of the pools in good numbers seeking oxygen and jockeying continually for position. Days later into April temperatures had plummeted hugely and the impact on the salmon’s physiology seemed to cause stress which was noted in reports of isolated fresh fish seen with fungus. Thankfully this problem seemed to disappear over a period of weeks as salmon became more spread out and less stressed, but it was a concern for all. Lars Terkildsen brought a crack team of anglers over from Sweden, as did Mattias Helde and they had some super catches on the beats they fished with some big specimens landed and some bigger ones lost. Mawill Lüdenbach reported the loss of a huge fish he fought into the darkness at Ballogie. He had the fish close in and estimated that it was perhaps 1.1 metre long and suggested comfortably over 30lbs. There were a good number of fish landed during April in excess of 20lbs. River levels seemed to fluctuate all too regularly which must have put fish off the take at times. Catches rose to just short of 500 but all things being equal it had been another difficult month with catches significantly less than the previous year when conditions were excellent. We headed into the month of May hoping to see a big surge in running fish and catches. There were to be no shortage of anglers eager to catch a prized Dee Springer and there were to be some whoppers.

Mawill Ludenbach with an 18lb springer at Carlogie

May saw temperatures continue to be on the cold side until the last 10 days when they finally rose significantly. There had been days when the air temperature struggled to get above 5 degrees Celsius but towards the end of the month temperatures rose to over 22 degrees as skies became clear and high pressure built. There were some big fish landed with John Richmond taking the honours with a 30lb salmon at Invery. Ole Wisteler had a beautiful 28lber at Lower Invercauld & Monaltrie, a beat that was bucking the trend and fishing very well. Peter Pleydell-Bouverie had a nice 25 lb salmon at Lower Crathes; Arni Baldursson took the 100th salmon for the beat for the season. Davie Gibbon, Ghillie at Middle Blackhall reported the capture of a fabulous 25lb salmon for Mr Pinney; likewise Colin Simpson reported a 25lb salmon for Ian Rose at Lower Blackhall. The months reported capture of 762 salmon was a big improvement over the previous month’s totals and this trend was to continue as we entered the summer period on the Dee in June with her Majesty the Queens Jubilee celebrations coinciding with the reported capture of a massive salmon for Nick James, Chairman of the Wye and Usk foundation, at Balmoral at 48 inches in length.

 

[ken@fishdee]

FishDee 2012 Season Review part 2​

We entered the summer period for FishDee with hopes that salmon would run the river in bigger numbers than we had during the preceding months of the season; we were not to be disappointed as the runs of salmon improved through the summer months and salmon catches picked up, much to the delight of Ghillies and anglers. It was noted that the Grilse run appeared to come earlier this year and in decent numbers from June into July. It is perhaps fitting that the Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend in June culminated with a spectacular event at Balmoral with the reported capture of a 50 inch long salmon. Mr Nick James was fishing the pretty 6 mile beat as part of the Woodward Party. Mr James, an experienced angler, hooked and landed this leviathan after 45 minute struggle and in accordance with the River Dee conservation code returned the fish to the river with the minimum of fuss after measuring the fish at 50 inches from the nose to the point of the tail. This would mean a deduction of a couple of inches would be required at least to enable a rough calculation of the weight of this fish. There were no witnesses to on hand to see the capture of this huge fish however I am in no doubt Mr James had a real battle landing this great leviathan of a fish following our discussions.

I received correspondence from Edward Humphrey from Dinnet Estate who commented 'Just to report that Charles Hill's party fished Dinnet and Dee Castle the week before last and had their best catch for 26 years with 31 salmon and 6 sea trout and they even afforded themselves some time off to play golf! There was no lack of effort for the rest of the week but on Saturday evening the party were still two short of the 2010 total. Charles kindly asked me to fish on Saturday night and I caught a small grilse whilst he landed a 10lb fish in Logie but the prize went to Andrew Markland who caught the 27lb cracker in the Glide to round off an excellent week. Sadly no photos are available of the big fish but it rounded off an excellent week for the Hill part with the majority of the fish being shared equally between Charles, Andrew Markland and his brother Robert.' I spoke with Birse Ghillie Doug Murray this morning to ask about the 30lb salmon reported from his beat on Saturday. Doug commented 'Gordon Smith, a keeper at Seafield Estates from Elgin was the angler who landed the 30lb salmon they reported on Saturday. The fish was caught at the Trees Pool and was measured.' Birse is a big fish beat’ and I am sure Mr Smith was delighted with his fine capture. There were regular spates during the month encouraging fish to get on the move and the June catch was well over the 5 year average.

An image of a lovely salmon at Logie, Dinnet beat. I never tire of looking at this image

We entered July full of optimism as rod bookings were reasonable and the summer weather was proving to be dull, grey, wet and cool, ideal really for salmon fishermen, but not for sea trout sport. July saw fortunes change dramatically for the better for anglers on Deeside. Jeremy Clayton, the Dess proprietor landed a fine 22 lb salmon and was delighted that his four recent salmon from the beat all exceeded 15lbs. It was heartening to see numbers landed at Park picking up really well as new fish came forward and started to populate the beat in good numbers. I had some correspondence about sport at Park. Philip Black wrote with images advising 'Hi Ken, good to see you yesterday, hope all went well with the filming. I'm just sending a few pictures of fish I caught on Park on Wednesday. I had a great day with Jim Reid and Keith the Ghillie. I ended up getting 6, from 4lb to 13lb, all liced. I'm not back up till end of august. All the best Phil.’ I also had news from the aforementioned Jim Reid, who also had good sport at Park. Jim commented 'Hi Ken, fishing was really good, despite quite high and peaty water. I got three on Monday, two grilse and a 12lber, then two 12lber's and two 14lber's on Tuesday. My pal Philip Black got 6 on Tuesday; another two fishers got three each. Most of mine were sea-liced, cracking Dee fish. I was very well looked after by Keith as usual.’ Jim Reid is an excellent angler who is passionate about his sport. I was really delighted to hear that Jim landed a fish estimated to be between 37-42 lbs at Bemersyde on Tweed which was verified and photographed last Wednesday; the biggest for that beat in 25 years.

The week of the 16th July saw 311 salmon reported with Robert Harper at Lower Crathes advising 'The Fielding party had an excellent week with 25 salmon and grilse to 20lbs. They had an excellent first half of the week with 19 for the first 3 days before the river rose significantly and sport quietened down. Anthea Fielding had an excellent 20lb salmon on Saturday to round of an excellent week.' Lower Crathes went on to record a total of 90 salmon and grilse in July, their best month of the season. I also chatted with Brian Sim at the lovely Crathes beat who commented 'We had a good week with 23 nice salmon and grilse to 16lbs. Mr Vincente Gonzalez had a fantastic weeks fishing with 14 fish for the week on small size 14 Cascades fished on a variety of sink tips off a floating line to suit water heights. We have had 3 already this morning which is a super start to the week. ‘Crathes also had their best month of the season in July with 65 salmon and grilse. The following week, Jim Paton at Upper Drum and Lower Durris reported, ‘The beat had 36 salmon and grilse for the week, with some real crackers being landed. Dave Wakefield had a fabulous 24lber and Peter Brown had salmon of 22lbs and 20 lbs. The grilse are in excellent condition this year; nice plump specimens. Results were really first class during the first half of the week with the Lower Durris shrimp fly scoring heavily. The fly was designed by George West and has an olive green coloured hackle and tail with silver body; a really great fly.’ July saw 1156 salmon and grilse reported which was significantly above the 5 year average of 652.

Greig Thomson of Salmo Fishings with a nice fresh salmon

We entered August with hopes that the super runs of salmon in July would continue and we were not to be too disappointed with the final outcome which saw 1042 salmon and grilse reported against a 5 year average of 1132. There were a number of big spates that occurred that will have reduced catches a little but there were thoughts that the big summer/ autumn run was diminishing as went through the month of August into September. Bill Palmer, the beat Ghillie from Borrowston wrote advising ‘Dear Ken, This is the photo of Mr. Chris Coltart. This is the first salmon that he has caught and it weighed 28 lbs. He caught it on an executioner (one of my interpretations) at Mid Hole. He also had another take in the same pool and the fish looked about the same size, unfortunately this one got away.’ River Dee Ghillies were receiving great praise from visiting anglers with Tom Lumley advising ‘Keith Cromar was just fantastic - his enthusiasm and professionalism was just amazing, he is an example to all other Ghillies - he went beyond the call of duty to get me a fish, he noticed I wasn't enjoying one particular beat, and moved me around to get me a fish, which I did.’ Jonathon Woodcock wrote advising ‘We had a fantastic week guided by the beat Ghillie George Murray who was a real star and between four of us we caught 6 Salmon between 6 and 9 pounds.’

The Feugh tributary was starting to fish well with Alex and Kathleen Brown who manage Heughhead writing to advise ‘Good Morning Ken, just a quick word about a new customer we had fishing on Saturday. Graham Bruce, from Fife, booked through FishPal on Friday afternoon and travelled up on Saturday with his friend John, and after a late start as the river was still quite high after Friday morning's rain, they managed to catch (and release) a total of 7 salmon between them, ranging from 2 small grilse to a 10lb fish which is the biggest we have had off the beat this season. That took the beat's total for the week up to 15 salmon and 5 sea trout, obviously helped by large spates on Tuesday and Thursday and that smaller one on Friday/Saturday. This was by far our best week since we started managing the beat.’ The beat was to enjoy some other great sport on the back of falling spates in the following weeks. I received an e-mail from Mr John Walne about a trip to Birse. Mr Walne commented ‘Thought I would just let you know how very much I enjoyed 3 days on Birse. It`s many years since I last fished the Dee but 25years ago I caught my best ever salmon (25lb Springer) on the Bruach Pool at Dinnet, so for old times’ sake I decided to treat myself to a trip down memory lane. I hadn`t fished Birse before and arrived (12th July) as it was starting to fine off after heavy rain on the 10th. First morning - a very nice 12lb fish from Irrigation Pool; Doug Murray netted it for me, he`s a great character. Second morning a 7lb fish from Trees Pool and third morning a nice sea trout from Red Rock and in the afternoon lost a cracking fish on Belwade Pool. The river was improving steadily and the total bag that week was 26 salmon and about 12 sea trout. Doug Murray was most helpful and friendly, especially on the first day as I was the only rod to score, and he keeps the hut so well stocked and immaculate. By coincidence I booked B&B at Dinnet House so there was much reminiscing about times past - Marcus and Sabrina Humphrey rooted out their old 1987 record book to confirm the date of my prize catch and Marcus even took me down and invited me to wet a line on Bruach Pool - what wonderful hospitality. Having reconnected with your lovely river I hope to return next season - trouble is I`m getting a bit long in the tooth and at 77, three full days solid fishing is becoming more of a challenge so must find someone to share a rod. I`m only a lad compared to Doug at 83!

Mads Pedersen with a fine summer fish at Culter

Keith Cromar reported from Park. ‘There was a good 42 inch long salmon, estimated at 28lbs landed on Park South by Mr John Kane from Ayrshire. This fish was hooked in Bulwarks and landed down beside the Sheeoch burn some 40 minutes later. Mr Kane had 10 fish during his 3 day visit from a 2lb Grilse to this cracking 28lb cock salmon. All the fish were taken on a size 13 orange Flamethrower pattern; this popular design was created by Duncan Egan and is a highly successful fly.’ Mads Pedersen provided a report from Culter where there were 23 fresh salmon reported. He advised that Stephen Farquhar enjoyed a red letter day on Friday with 6 salmon landed and 3 lost to his own rod. They only had 2 rods fishing each day that week so the catch of 23 was a good return for the amount of rod effort. Fiona Martin wrote from Glen Tanar advising 'Georg Reutter whose fishing party have been on the beat for the week commented. 'We were staying at Birkelunn this week for some walked up grouse shooting, stalking and of course fishing the lovely Headinch and Cambus O'May beat. With a good amount of rain at the beginning of the week, the river was fishing well for most of the week. We had several first time fishermen and women in our group and it was great that two of them (William Shirley from Norfolk and Benedikt Traun from Austria) were able to land their first ever salmon. By Friday we had caught 4 fish in total with the biggest coming in at 13lb.We caught all our fish on the Ally's shrimp fly which proved to be very effective for both the larger resident salmon we caught but also a couple of clean grilse that had made the long run up to the upper Dee in quick time. With the week not over yet we are optimistic that we might yet have some good fishing today and Saturday.'

Alec Coutts dropped me a note about sport at Aboyne Castle advising 'Kenneth Carruthers party had a good week on Aboyne Castle with 16 salmon and grilse plus a sea trout. Kenneth caught 6 and the sea trout. Guest Alex Robertson caught his first salmon and finished with 3 for his day on Monday. Also a first fish for Colin Shand with grilse of 3 and 5 lbs, a converted trout fisherman! David Robinson had 3 and John Grandison one. Cascades, Park Shrimps and Sunray Shadows were doing the business for the party. We had our 100th fish for the season on Friday.' Lower Crathes Head Ghillie Robert Harper advised 'We had a really good last week for the 3 rods fishing with 22 salmon and grilse landed by anglers. Lewis Gray had 10 to his own rod with brother Jim having a couple, James Watt had 3 of 10, 7 and 22lbs. River Dee Board Chairman Ian Scott a fish and visitor Jim Reid had 2 fish.'

 

[ken@fishdee]

FishDee 2012 Season Review Part 3​

We entered September with a reasonable distribution of salmon and grilse throughout the catchment. The start of the month saw warm and dry weather conditions which saw catches drop substantially and it wasn’t until the middle of the month that returns to cooler and wetter weather pattern saw fortunes improve. There were at times some outstanding catches and news filtered through of some great sport, Andrew Callaghan landed a verified 35lb fresh salmon at Ardoe and Ian Murray's rods at Lower Invercauld and Monaltrie had 12 salmon and a sea trout in one day. Birse reported 31 salmon, Carlogie and Aboyne Water both had 23 salmon for the week, Park 22, Dess 20 and Monaltrie and Lower Invercauld 19. The water temperature had dropped significantly and salmon became more aggressive which in turn has led to significantly increased catches. Bill Palmer from Borrowston advised that the beat had been fishing really well. Bill commented that salmon seemed to be only interested in taking a Red Frances fly with a gold hook and would not look at any other colour of hook! Bill landed a 30lb salmon, a fresh run 28lb salmon and his son Mark had a 24lb salmon. Hugh Lane landed a 28lb salmon at Birse assisted by Cleeve Cowie. This big fish took a size 12 silver stoat's tail fly at Red Brae. Archie Hay the Ghillie at Crathie advised that a visiting angler Mr James Williams hooked and landed a 25 lb coloured cock fish on a size 12 Munro Killer. Grant Gibson wrote advising about a personal best for himself at Craigendinnie commenting 'Ken, Please find above picture of fish caught from Craigendinnie on Tues 17th Sept. George Murray asked me to send it to you. The fish was 40 and a half inches long and estimated at 24lbs and a bit. Joy Wadsworth wrote about a great days sport for her husband at Birse commenting’ My husband, David Wadsworth, has asked me to tell you of his most memorable day, ever, on the River Dee at Birse, he caught 7 salmon in 3 hours. Their weights were; 25lbs, 16lbs, 2X 15lbs, 13lbs, 10lbs and 5lbs.' The fishing season closed for beats above Aboyne Bridge at the end of September. September saw FishDee beats report 1197 salmon and grilse against a 5 year average of 1420. Catches were down a bit on the 5 year average and reports indicated that runs of silver fresh fish had dropped quite a bit during the later part of the month. There were big fish being reported, and this pattern was to continue during the first fortnight of October until the fishing season finished on Monday 15th October.

Chris Coltart returning a nice summer salmon

Reid Hagelin who was over from Norway hooked into a huge fish, first cast at the top of the Mill Pool and had a real battle with a big strong male fish which took him hundreds of yards downstream. Charles Booth waited patiently providing great advice for the angler and Charles eventually managed to get the great fish into the MacLean landing net after it got stuck in some Ranunculus weed in the pool tail. The angler and Ghillie were delighted to see the scale drop to over 35 lbs and agreed that they would settle at 35 lbs and swiftly took some images for the angler and beat and returned the fish safely back to the river. The angler would never have landed this great fish without the Ghillie who waded out to secure the capture of this great specimen. Head Ghillie Robert Harper was absolutely thrilled to write up the capture of this big fish into the catch log; his first entry of over 30lbs in 36 years of being a Ghillie. The final week of the 2012 fishing season saw the highest catches reported for the season. FishDee beats reported 414 salmon for the week; Birse reported 76 salmon, Ballogie 59, Park 45 with Lower Crathes and Carlogie both reporting 32. The heaviest fish reported was landed by Thomas Torpe at 33lbs, which was measured at 43 inches, part of a catch of 11 he made for his day at Birse, on a size 14 fly. Heughhead beat on the Feugh had a catch of 14 in one day following the big spate that occurred during the latter half of the week. There were quite a number of significant individual catches made and large salmon caught and released during the week, which for the first part of the week saw excellent conditions tailor made for anglers to do well. Catches in October saw 694 salmon reported against a 5 year average of 613. The season finished on Monday 15th October, this saw 30 salmon reported by FishDee beats.

Noel Harvey having a cast in the Kirks Pool at Upper Drum

The distribution of salmon catches during the fishing season saw Lower beats report 2381 against a 5 year average of 2689, Middle beats reported 2846 against a 5 year average of 2240 and Upper beats reported 1415 against a 5 year average of 1498. As a whole the rod catch picked up quite significantly after a relatively smaller spring run compared to recent years where spring catches were improving noticeably. The summer catch was very decent with the grilse run being very good, coming at a much needed time. The autumn catch was steady, but reports from lower beats indicated a smaller run of late fresh fish. There is a good distribution of salmon stocks throughout the catchment and we hope that river conditions will be ideal to encourage good spawning. It is hoped that 2013 will see more favourable fishing conditions during the early spring months and an abundance of fish returning to the River Dee to produce future generations of salmon and sea trout.

Andrew Williamson with a nice summer salmon

To finish I would like to express my sincere thanks to all Ghillies, Estates & proprietors and of course anglers who have contacted me throughout the fishing season with their views, comments and anecdotes. I would like to thank the Ghillies on behalf of all anglers who have been hugely complimentary about the help provided to anglers fishing River Dee beats. Thanks also go to Ghillies Shane Christie, Robert Harper and River Director Mark Bilsby for helping me to provide a balanced weekly report ensuring that the context is right. Proprietors will be writing to annual tenants shortly offering renewals for the 2013 fishing season and once these have been booked availability for 2013 will go onto the FishDee website during the winter months. Demand is sure to be high as the River Dee continues to provide more spring run salmon than other UK rivers. Wishing all readers a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year. Tight Lines to you all in 2013. Ken Reid © FishDee Ltd