The last week was typical of late October, with lots of fish in Finavon’s pools, of which about one in five was fresh. The total of ten fish for the week doesn’t sound bad, until you learn that eight of them were caught on Friday! Air temperature dropped and the first serious snow appeared on the high hills above the Angus Glens, but the water level dropped away, the frosts nipped the leaves off the trees, and the water assumed that wintry clarity that I feel makes it a bit of a lottery as to whether the fish will take: on the other hand, was it ever otherwise?. But then on Thursday the rain came in fitful showers and in sufficient quantities to raise the river level by about 9″. On the Armchair Rock, revealed by the new webcam, that means a healthy bulge of water around the sides of the rock, with the occasional splash over the top to wet the facing surface of the armchair, and plenty of stream between the rock and the North bank (the camera is looking west).
14lbs salmon from tail olf Indies (returned)
Friday was a good day following heavy overnight rain, with salmon ranging in size from 15lbs (Simon Walter) to a 7lbs beautiful sea-liced hen fish, duly returned (Ned Malleson). The only other fish caught during the week were one each day on Monday and Tuesday in difficult conditions and after a lot of hard fishing. And then Saturday should have been good, but the river was still rising and turgid when our flyfisherman started at 0900. Only a few fish were seen during the morning with the river still rising slightly. But in the afternoon the level began to fall and the wind dropped so that the minestrone effect of a river full of leaves subsided. There were soon fish being seen everywhere, especially in Willows, Volcano, Lower Boat and Indies Pools. Simon Walter, fishing Lower Boat Pool, had a good long pull from a salmon, which stripped line off the reel before the fly came back to him. That was the extent of the action for a beautiful autumn day.
Next week is the last of the 2010 season. With 122 salmon and grilse and 177 sea trout caught in Finavon’s pools during 2010, it is fair to say that this is an average season. There are now plenty of salmon and sea trout in the river to spawn and start the freshwater part of the lives of the next generation of our migratory fish. Provided we don’t get another massive and damaging spate, it should be a good year for procreation – if you are a salmon that is! But with one more week to go, and the river holding its level nicely, perhaps we will have a few more fish to add to our total. If that is the case it will be a happy week for Charlie Palmer, William Simper and our loyal local rods.
During the winter I will be writing a series of blogs about the history of salmon and sea trout fishing at Finavon. I will include photographs and statistics taken from the records going all the way back to the 1880s. And of course I will be writing about the prospects for 2011 as the winter progresses and the guesses of eternal optimism turn into forecasts based on observation. The one thing we cannot predict with any certainty is how many fish will return from the sea into the South Esk. We don’t know because no-one is measuring the inward migrations, and the only data we are currently using is the fickle and unreliable rod catch statistics. Things can only get better (one hopes!).
TA