Finavon Castle Bulletin

Tyndals is Finavon Castle Water’s best spring salmon pool. In 2012, up to the 5th of May, 12 spring salmon had been caught in this pool from a total of 15 in all FCW pools. Most salmon caught in this pool are caught on fly from the North (left) bank.

Tyndals Pool (Milton Beat). The best spring pool at FCW. This picture above was taken from the right bank at the lower end of the pool. It is the only pool on Milton Beat that is fished from the left bank. You get to the pool in all water levels when the webcam boulder is visible by wading across the wide stream beneath the power line. My advice is to use a wading stick because, although shallow, the stream is fast and powerful. The alternative is to cross the river either via the Red Brae suspension bridge and walking up the bank, or by crossing the A90 bridge, which I find a bit noisy and dangerous. The walk up the bank from Red Brae is preferable and gives a bonus of an enjoyable little stroll up the north bank of Milton Beat.

View of Tyndals (above) from the top of the pool looking downstream towards Willows. Once you have arrived at the head of the pool on the north bank you are on webcam and centre stage for people all over the world to see you, so don’t pick your nose or take the opportunity of arriving there to have a surreptitious pee in the bushes, because it will be international news before you have completed your ablutions! You are only on camera while fishing the very top of the stream into the pool. Thereafter, as you move down the pool towards the main taking spots under the right bank, you are on your own fishing one of the most perfect pools on the South Esk!

This is the tail of Tyndals Pool (above) looking downstream into Willows and the head of the Boat Pool. Whether you are looking to catch a spring or autumn salmon in seasonal heavy flows or creeping down the pool at night keeping as quiet as you can as you search for a shy and elusive sea trout, Tyndals gives you a feeling that a fish may take your fly at any second. On occasions the pool is ‘stuffed with fish’ especially at sea trout time (June/July) and in the autumn.

Flow into the head of Tyndals Pool (Milton Beat). Wading is easy over fine gravel and only the very occasional lie boulder to trip you up. The wade from the top of the stream at the webcam boulder down to the line of boulders that marks the start of the Willows is about 200 yards, and there’s a chance of a fish all the way down, especially just downstream of the elbow. To get across to the south (right) bank to fish the Willows you just wade diagonally across the river, well above your fetlocks in places, and continue wading downstream, fishing back towards the north bank as you approach the famous Willows lies.

You may wonder why I have concentrated on one pool in this blog. The reason is simply that a poll of all our anglers would I think bring out a clear preference for Tyndals over all Finavon’s pools, although I suspect about 6 of them would be close behind. I must try it sometime!

TA