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...

Inver and the North-west (August/September 2019)

I have been out of the habit of blogging on my fishing for quite a while now, but one of the silver linings (the only silver lining?) of the heavy cloud of pandemia currently rendering life fairly tedious in many places is that I have found some time to revisit my blog. I've had a few pretty memorable trips and days since I last checked in, but I'm going to report on a late Summer/early Autumn trip to the North-west last season.

John and I had two weekends sandwiching a full working week off to play with and set off northwards late on the first Friday with a plan to fish a small, unfashionable spate river in the North-west on the Saturday. We made it as far a Kincraig before we had to stop for the night and so, by the time we arrived in the plague of midgies that is Wester Ross on the Saturday morning, it was already 11am. We stopped in, picked up our permits and had a quick flick through the book, before tackling up with our single handers and jumping into the boat on the small lochan that is the focal point of the system. The river either side of the lochan was very high (possibly 3' above Summer level) and so the lochan itself and the inflow to it was our main fishing for the day. We fished hard all day with fairly little activity, covering a lie where we knew a couple of fish had been caught in recent weeks, before taking a break for a dram and to dry out the sodden and miserable looking cocker who was ready for the car.

There was a good looking spot which we'd saved up at the outflow from the lochan, where the river makes a break for the sea over some old weirs. John very sportingly ghillied me into position a few yards from the certain death of the steep 500 metres of rapid flowing out of the lochan. I cast my flies (a subtle pairing of a Grouse and Claret on dropper and a Bibio on point, which were believe it or not chosen with migratories in mind due to the dark, peaty water) across the draw heading for the outflow weir and, just as the flies came onto the dangle, the line tightened. The fish held deep but for a good minute or so I was sure it was a decent brownie; however, after a good acrobatic fight it turned out to be a small grilse which had been in for few weeks or a month. It had taken that classic highland salmon fly, the Bibio! A great start to the trip, catching a first fish from an old Raine Family favourite holiday spot.

We had a good and successful day's trout fishing on the Sunday also after an equally successful night in the pub, before heading further North to Assynt. I managed another smaller grilse from another small, local spate river in between two unproductive but enjoyable days on the lochs around Lochinver (a few nice trout but nothing more). We then moved onto the main fishing for the trip; our three days on the lower River Inver.

We had fairly high water for our days, being at the uppermost extremity of the levels where fish were reported in the book. That said, whilst the Inver is not as spatey as other West Coast rivers, it is still water dependent and so better too much than too little. At this level, fishing the gorge which runs from the famous Star Pool down to Carpenter's and the Sea Pool at Lochinver was not really worthwhile. The vast majority of our time was spent on the beautiful pools upstream to the lower middle beat and we were fortunate enough to share four further fish between us and to have hooked a few more. Most were good, strong, classic Inver fish with strong shoulders presumably for navigating the various waterfalls and heavy flows between the sea and the spawning grounds in the tributaries and up at Inchnadamph. We also remarked that it was nice to have caught these fish from some of our favourite pools on the beat, Cow, Pollan and the unspeakably good Whirl Pool.

Here are some pictures and clips of the outside world to keep you going for now; hopefully Covid-19 will set us all free to go and enjoy the rest of the 2020 season soon enough! Best wishes to all, for now.

Calum

 A very high spate river on Day One.

A very happy fisherman on Day One.

It's handy to have a dog who will let you know when he's done for the day.

One of a few nice highland trout. Very distinct Wester Ross colouring on this one.

A quiet day in the boat in Assynt for good measure.

Another small grilse from a tiny pool.

We went for a meal in Kylesku (worth the drive) and this was the view. Beautiful.

A bigger Inver fish from Whirl Pool.  

 Red Stream.

Dad in Lower New Pool.

Fish on in Cow Pool.  

Strong netting technique. Wonder who that is.

John with his first fish.

Pleased. 

A fish from Pollan.

Carpenter's, at the bottom of the beat; too high but still beautiful. 

John has the last say in Whirl Pool.  

Turn Pool and Scramble.

Star Pool, just prior to signing off for 2019.

Pleased with that.

Altnaharra, Naver (12-14 March 2018)

My friend John and I were lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to fish on the renowned River Naver in Sutherland in mid-March. I like fishing on many rivers in Scotland, but I do feel a sense of real privilege when I have a chance to fish a proper Highland river and the Naver is probably the cream of the crop.

Some classic Strathnaver scenery.

The rods we fished were Altnaharra rods, Altnaharra Estate having two two rod beats (one under the name of Achnabourin) on the river, the others being fished by Syre (three beats) and Skepic & Rhifail Estates (one beat plus a private stretch) respectively. We stayed in Altnaharra Hotel (no present day link) at the head of Loch Naver and the drive in past this steely stretch of water put the river system  and its various beats nicely in context before each day's fishing.

Dal Mallart pool, the junction pool with the main tributary, the River Mallajrt which comes in just below Loch Naver.

John and Rogie enjoying the fire at Altnaharra Hotel.

On day one, we were to fish the highly-regarded Beat 6, which is next up from the private and association waters and is the closest beat in the estate rotation to the sea. We were told that this was the beat to get a fish on in the cold, wintry conditions we were to fish in.

John was first to get a bend in his rod, picking up a kelt in his first run down the famous Potato Park pool. Another kelt soon followed for me, this time in the slack inside water on the left bank of Cruives, before John picked up another at the tail of the pool.

A kelt for John from Potato Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuFSrHg1wBY

My kelt from Cruives.

We moved on to fish Breeding Box (John) and Skelpick Bridge and Flats pools (me), respectively. Another kelt each came fairly quickly, along with some other tugs and pulls, from water which couldn't really have felt any 'fishy-er'.

The day was drawing to close when we moved downstream to give Skelpick Stream and Dal Horrisgle a go. I was a few casts into the neck of the calmer waters of Dal Horrisgle when I had a tug.  A sheep tangled up in wire on the left bank made itself known and our ghillie, Peter, headed off to save the day. Soon after, I hooked into a fish in the tail of the main stream which immediately took a few yards of line. This felt more like it. I mentioned to Peter that it felt like a springer, but as it came upstream towards me, knocking away, I left Peter to it to free the sheep. At this point, the fish turned and took five, ten, fifteen, twenty yards of line and kept going. Peter informed that it was about time to set off and so we both began the jog downstream to keep up with the fish (disclaimer: sheep now liberated). By the time it stopped, it had run right out of the pool into the next stream down. Tired from the run (the fish, not me), I put a bit of pressure on at this stage to try and capitalise. I managed to keep it under a fair degree of control in the streamy flow it was now sitting in. A few minutes passed and, after a considerable amount of pressure, the fish was holding deep in at the left bank and Peter expertly managed to net the fish from the depths.

Dal Horrisgle: the fish ran straight down through this pool and out the tail into the next stream.

On inspection, it didn't disappoint; measured at 35inches and estimated at 18lbs, it was a sparkler. A scale reading was taken (since disclosing that it was a repeat spawner - great to hear) and it was swiftly released with plenty of energy to spare. What a start to the season! The story was told a few times in the hotel that evening and it was great to put a fish in the hotel book.

Strong and fresh with no lice, the fish didn't need much recovery time.

On days 2 and 3, we were to fish the upper beats on the river, Beats 1 and 2. Both of these comprise beautiful fly pools and there is barely a stretch that you wouldn't wish to cover in a day's fishing. With the cold water (2 celsius), the consensus was that the fish were not freely moving up from the lower beats, but we gave them a good covering regardless and it was great to see more of the river.

Ceann na Coille

Lines out in Dal Harrald

Syre Pool

The end result from these beats was a further kelt from me on Beat 1 (Lower Stables) and also one for John on Beat 2 (Lower Craggie), which was hooked right on the lip of the pool, which is above a set of rapids. John and I both thought that, given the location of the hooking, it was reasonable to hold out hope for a springer, but alas not to be.

A kelt from Lower Stables for me.

Lower Craggie (a great cast) and a kelt for John.

What a beautiful place to fish and, with a week on Speyside at Craigellachie coming up, there's more to come.