Finavon Castle Bulletin

Today (14/5) we had a sea liced 6lbs fish in Marcus House Pool.

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

Later in the day I phoned the Montrose MSS office and heard that there are now 3 radio tagged salmon at Almondmouth in the Tay, a total of 5 in the North Esk, and another two salmon in the South Esk.

The total number of radio tagged salmon in the South Esk is now 16, with 5 that have dropped downriver.

No fish have been reported from the receivers on the Dee, one being at Altries and the other at the head of tide.

A total of 24 salmon from 113 radio-tagged fish have now been recorded.

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

With another rise in the river after overnight rain on Monday you would have thought that conditions were ideal for catching newly arrived spring salmon. But it was not to be. Despite seeing fish in Tyndals and the Willows, two of them which appeared to be fresh and in the teens of pounds, yesterday I had only one half-hearted offer from a salmon on the dangle in mid Tyndals. Conditions last night, as dusk fell, were absolutely perfect, but the fish simply were not moving to the fly; only the occasional desultory splash reminded me that there were fish in the pools.

From the Fishpal website it seems that everyone else is experiencing the same unwillingness of fish to take the fly. But we shouldn’t use evidence of this unproductive period to make statements about the lack of spring fish. I am not claiming that there are high or low numbers of fish in the river: I am saying only that I don’t know whether there are or not. What I can say as fact is that there are some fish in the river and the ones I have caught, and continue to see in the pools, appear to be in good condition, despite a minor outbreak of disease.

Report on salmon found dead on 17 April. Regular readers of these blogs may remember that Moray and I found a large dead salmon beside Nine Maidens Pool (Castle Beat) on the 17th of April. The fish was 93.5 cms in length with a girth of 49.5 cms. It had died from lesions which had become infected with sacrolegnia. The cause of the lesions is unknown. I sent some scales to the Montrose office of Marine Scotland and received the following data from them; The fish had spent two years in the river as a parr and three winters at sea. It was a male fish. Judging by the spaces between the scale circuli it is clear that its second year at sea was the period of maximum growth during its life cycle.

With the Usan nets now killing every salmon they catch, except the ones that are radio-tagged by the MSS biologists, fewer fish will be entering the river, which of course is what has been going on for at least 150 years in periods of both abundance and scarcity. With netting effort now much reduced from a century ago, although methods and equipment may be more efficient than in the past, and if the weekly 60 hour slap is exercised, there should be a reasonable ‘escapage’ of salmon into the South Esk. Moreover, if we continue to get freshets as we are at present, we can expect fish to enter the river directly and avoid the often fatal trap of the gyres and whorls of migration close to the shore south of Scurdie Ness.

Update at 0945 on 9/5. A 7 lbs cock fish from Tyndals was caught as it clouded over after a bright & sunny start to the day. Tyndals has held fish consistently from late February.

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

1035 Bill Hay, a long-time fisherman at Finavon and friend of the late Cyril Butler (See November & December 2011 blogs on catches), started May with a 12lbs salmon, which had been in the river a while and appeared to be recvovering from head lesions, from Frank’s Stream (Indies Beat)

May Day Salmon 12lbs

1046 Eleven minutes later Derek had a 9lbs fish from Tyndals (Milton Beat) on a Willie Gunn.

This salmon was the first of two nine pounders that Derek caught in Tyndals on a bright and warm May morning. Both were caught on size 8 Willie Gunns (1″)

It is no coincidence that these fish were caught in the best conditions we have had for at least a week. The air temperature is up, the water clear and the level slowly dropping after the spate of Monday evening and, as I suspected despite rather negative signals from downriver, there are (fresh) fish in the river.

1131 Another 9lbs fresh fish from Tyndals (Milton Beat).

The fact that Derek caught an 18lbs sea-liced salmon and a 14lbs salmon at Kintrockat on Monday evening supports my view that fish have been running through the lower river, but have kept their heads down and therefore not been seen by fishers. I suppose the moral of the story is “Don’t believe what you haven’t seen”!

Late report after dark on 2 May. This evening I fished Tyndals Pool (Milton Beat) through as dusk was falling and a fresh salmon showed about 10 metres downstream of the ‘elbow’. I continued on down the pool as the bats started to fly and the colours seeped away from the foliage. Having fished down to the second south bank groyne I decided to wade quietly back to the top of the pool, and soon afterwards was covering the place where the salmon had shown. I could see the fall of the line and the splash of the fly against the fading light. The fly was swinging very nicely over the main lie just upstream of the big boulder in the centre of the stream, when the line drew away nicely, and after a few minutes of mayhem in the gathering gloom, I landed a silver salmon of about 11lbs. A lovely fish that swam off strongly into the night!

TA