Finavon Castle Bulletin

With the water clean & clear – the pale sherry colour of a top Speyside malt – and the level holding well with top-ups from showers in the hills, the late spring salmon run continues. I was pleased to see that Cortachy and Downie Park had six fish yesterday (14/6), I suspect with a high level of expertise going into the catching of them. At Finavon Ian Maclean caught a fresh 8lbs fish in Melgund Pool (Indies Beat) and late in the evening I had a 2lbs sea trout from Upper Melgund Pool, fishing from the south bank. We saw a few travelling fish, and my guess is that from now on the upper river will do much better than so far this season.

Ian Maclean's salmon 8lbs

The upper river – Kirriemuir Angling Club up to Gella Bridge, Cortachy Castle and Downie Park from the Sawmill Dam to Shielhill Bridge, and Inshewan – is really the cream of the South Esk fishing. While the genuine middle beats – exemplified by Finavon, Careston and Kintrockat – offer the angler some good fishing, especially in the spring and autumn, and for sea trout, the ‘highland character’ of the South Esk is defined by those beautiful upper river beats: I often think of them as the essence of the South Esk, a true Highland river, whilst the middle and lower beats all the way down to Kinnaird and House of Dun, are more lowland in character, or, as someone said to me the other day, more like a West Country river.

This morning (16/5) I heard from Marshall Halliday, Clerk to the Esks Fishery Board, the excellent news that the nets at the mouth of the South Esk (the USAN  nets) will be releasing all sea trout back into the sea alive with immediate effect. 

This is marvellous news for the South Esk and should allow our beleaguered sea trout stocks to continue rebuilding. I must congratulate the Board for getting its priorities right and negotiating this matter to its logical conclusion. The South Esk’s economy is based on its sea trout as well as its salmon. This is truly a great start to the week, and the news comes in the nick of time to let all our early sea trout, as well as the main runs later in the summer, into the river.

TA

These bulletin blogs represent news about Finavon and the South Esk, and my views as a riparian owner. They are not the views of any other organisation, nor are they designed to promote the interests of any individual or organisation other than Finavon Castle Water and factors affecting the fishery.  Tony Andrews

Today the sun shone all day long and the snow water kept coming. In these conditions, with the water temperature rising, there was always a good chance of a fish. The water was hardly fished in the morniong but this afternoon two of us covered the main pools for what almost certainly was a transient run of fish stopping for short periods in their migration upstream.

This 9lbs fish came from the dub in Tollmuir Pool and was caught by Derek Strachan.

Our sixth salmon in March 2011. A nice steady start to the season. It looks as if April and May will be rain-dependent (yet again)

For the first time for at least five years today we saw a shoal of not less than 50 seatrout in Willows and the Boat Pool. There is a good range of sizes amongst the shoal with some fish in the 4-6lbs range. They are of course absolutely fresh in from the sea. These early sea trout are often the biggest of the short sea trout season. Numbers of shoaling sea trout normally peak in the last week of June, but much depends on water levels. If we get a summer spate, many sea trout will quickly move upstream to the upper tributaries. But if the water remains low, with the occasional freshet to cool the water temperature and encourage fish to take the fly, we may well see a good year for sea trout fishing at night. The omens currently are looking good!

If the Boat Pool has a good shoal of sea trout, you can bet your bottom dollar that Indies Pool will also have fish.

The best sea trout fishing is at night