Sluie, Dee (3-5 September 2020)

My dad and I have been going to Deeside for a few days each season for about seven seasons now, for the beautiful, clear river, spacious beats and good local hospitality. From the 2015 season onwards, we have settled on going to Sluie, between Banchory and Kincardine O'neil, for three days each season and staying at Tor Na Coille in Banchory. Initially, we went in May for the springers, then June for the salmon and sea trout overlap and then this season we moved our days to September simply for optimum numbers of fish in the river.

 The river had not been fishing particularly well in the run up to our days this season. The Tweed, Tay and Spey, the remainder of the 'Big Four', had all been fishing pretty well and the Tweed and Spey were having their best seasons for years, but for some reason the Dee was lagging behind somewhat. On arrival (which was late due to work...), it became pretty clear fairly quickly that there were actually relatively good numbers of fish in the main holding pools, the Hut Pool and Middle Jetty (some photos of both from previous trips are below), even if not the other pools, although they were fairly stale and reluctant to play along. Regardless, the main focus of the fishing was therefore on these two pools, with forays down to Strathseven below and to Broken Jetties above to keep things interesting.

Due to the stale nature of the fish and the poor catches on the river as a whole, I chose to fish with two setups to maximise chances. I had my usual 13'6" 9# with a full floating shooting head and small to medium sized dressed flies, but also my 15' 10# with a floating head and ten feet of T-18 to make sure I wasn't missing any fish holed up on the bottoms of the pools. I matched the latter setup with short, strong nylon leaders and weighted tube flies of various sorts. 

Despite seeing the fish in Hut Pool and Middle Jetty fairly frequently, it was day two before any action came about. At the tail of the Hut Pool, there is a good lie on the far side of the current which doesn't lend well to good presentation from Sluie's left bank fishing (even if Commonty opposite probably have an easy cast at it). I was fishing my heavier setup with a conehead Black Frances quite square and with a drawn-in retrieve until the fly came round, when I hooked into a decent fish which was on for about 20 seconds before dropping off. I got a good look at it and had it down as a double figure hen fish with a bit of purple sheen. Frustrating, but at least a bit of action on day two. 

 We decided to get up early and fish before breakfast on day three to try and break the trend of fish being reluctant to take (one take in two days for two rods is slow going). We were up at 4:30am and on the beat for 5am to see the Morning Star and wait for enough light to fish. 

Ironically, the morning session proved completely unproductive and it ended up being the last cast of the trip which got the reward. It was the same cast at the tail of the Hut Pool as mentioned above, with the same setup but this time a dressed Black Frances with a smaller overall profile. The end result was hooking into and this time landing the same fish(!), after an entertaining ten minute struggle. Spending lockdown watching Michael Frodin videos on playing fish hard seemed to have paid off, as knocking the fish off balance every time it settled brought it up on its side and into the net. On inspection, I had a nice hookhold right in the scissors. Very satisfying and one that the pup, Horris, seemed to enjoy too; he is apparently slightly more 'barky' than his bro-in-law Rogie when there is a fish on! 

The week finished with only 87 fish from the whole river and I see only 59 were caught in the following week also. This is in comparison to scores of 300 plus on the Tweed most weeks recently. Hopefully things pick up a bit next season on the Dee.

Next up is a trip to Wester Ross and Assynt which will be a welcome break from the tedium of city life during Covid-19. Last year, we got seven fish for the week on North-west spate rivers so we’re watching the forecast keenly at the moment.

 Tight lines, folk. Get a cast in if you can just in case the extra fish around this year are a one off...