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
Water conditions have been perfect over the last week and we have caught some nice two sea-winter salmon, with Andrew Bett catching and releasing a 17lbs fresh fish in Marcus House Pool. After the excitements of the previous week when Simon Walter lost two double figures salmon in Boat Pool and Tollmuir Pool (We think both were closer to 20lbs than 10lbs) we ended up on the last day of July with a respectable 45 salmon for the season to date. If we get water and fish the catches should rise quickly from now until the close of the season at the end of October. As far as sea trout are concerned we have had 79 for the season so far and there are no shoals of sea trout or fresh run fish to brighten things up. At the rate things are going I think we may struggle to reach our five-year average for sea trout this season.
As I write this update on 3 August the River is in excellent ply and big fish are running through but not in any great numbers. The grilse have not yet appeared but with more rain forecast I expect this to change in the next few days.
Gennady Zharkov, Chairman of Russian Salmon Fund, Fishing Red Brae Pool