The middle of July has turned out wet. With two spates in the last five days there has been ample water for salmon, grilse and sea trout to move through the river system, which is exactly what has happened. On Friday Andrew Robertson hooked and lost a very large salmon in The Bridge Pool. He played the fish for more than twenty minutes and described it as sea-fresh with a tail breadth of at least 9″ tip to tip of the tail fin.
Then, also on Friday, Derek Strachan caught and returned a beautiful sea trout of 30″ in length and an estimated weight of 7.5lbs to 8lbs. From scale readings we learned that this female sea trout is (still alive and on its way to spawning!) is nine years old having smolted after two years in the river and spent one year at sea before returning to spawn in each of the last seven years. The picture below shows Derek with the fish just before returning it to the river.
8 lbs sea trout from Finavon Castle Water
Since then, with the level of the river up and down with heavy showers in the hills, and the water too peaty for optimum fly fishing, we have caught two grilse, one nice one of 7.5lbs – his first salmon – by Simon Walter and half a dozen sea trout. Needless to say there was much rejoicing and a celebratory dram or two because Simon is the designer and maintainer of this website, which many of our readers tell us they enjoy. I caught a small grilse early on Monday in Tyndals, but on Tuesday no less than three salmon and seven sea trout were hooked and lost. I don’t find this particularly surprising because in my experience running fish in the South Esk tend to take the fly with less conviction than when they have settled into their lies in a falling river.
As I write this on 21st July the river is roaring down in a brown spate after heavy rain throughout the night. We should see more grilse in the river after this spate, especially with the weekend lay-off of the coastal nets starting at 1800 on Friday.
There are still a few days left in early August, so if you would like to rent a beat at Finavon, now is the time to contact us.
TA