Weekly Reports & News
Date: 5 May 2008
What a difference a week makes for at last the trees are beginning to finally look a bit green and it feels like Spring has finally arrived, especially when the sun it out.
Despite the wind still coming predominately from either an easterly or south easterly direction, it has generally been a light wind. Like last week, this light wind has not affected the fish and they continue to feed well, but if it strenghtens, they're off the surface. The best rises have been late evening, because it's then that the wind fallsl away. A large number of anglers have been using dries and/or CDCs and, not surprisingly, when used during the rises, a significant number of fish have been caught. However, the dry has to be small, a minimum of size 16 and either black or dark olive. Should add here that we've seen some good hatches of pond olives and I saw my first sedge of the season. It flew onto the table in front of the hut, but look very unsteady on it's feet! Various nymphs have continued to be successful, whether that be a Diawl Bach or a Damsel Nymph, in all their variants. Light weight Buzzers have also tempted fish when they are on the rise, fish a foot or so below the surface, but if they stop surface feeding, then change to a heavier buzzer. Those who have used lures have found the Cats Whisker and Yellow Dancer to be the most productive.
Once again, some good size bows have been seen, but they can be devilish to catch! However, while not the largest, Stuart McRae reported returning a nice bow circa 7lbs, while Gus Ogilvie weighed in a lovely bow at 6lbs 2ozs. While large baskets have been a little thin, from memory, no one has blanked this past week. Examples of recent returns include T Sampson who during a short visit returned 7, best at 4lbs, all taken on dries; he reported missing as many. J Mitchell and M Mitchel tempted 12 and 10 respectively using buzzer, best at 5lbs, while visitors B Moore and I Cope returned 11 and 12 using nymphs and buzzers, best at 5lbs.
Weather forecast for the forthcoming week is probably the best so far this week - if it's correct. Winds will be light, or lightish, and predominately from the South East, with sunny spells all week, until the weekend when we can expect some rain. Air temperarures will be good at between 12 and 16C, with night time air temperatures remaining around 6 or 7C.
The sand martins and swallows are continuing to feed across the loch, so we can expect to see the trout continuing to feed high in the water. Recommendation therefore remains to use a floating line, with a leader circa 10 to 12 feet. As in the past, some anglers may want to use an intermediate lines so that when the wind does pick up and the fish go down, they can follow them. But remember, they are not going deep. While we are now into the start of the top of water fishing, fly choice will depend on the angler, but consider what has been working......light weight buzzers, nymphs and dries. As usual, remember to change your fly if it's unsuccessful, vary the speed of your retrieve until you find how fast, or slow, high or low the trout want it and, if you are unsuccessful fishing at one spot, I would urge anglers to move to another.
NE Challenge - 2008
Sponsored by 
Elgin Angling Centre
The NE Challenge this year is being sponsored by Sharpe's of Aberdeen, Clan Nets and the Elgin Angling Centre and I thank them for their support and match dates are 30 Mar, 27 Apr, 25 May, 29 Jun, 28 Sep and 2 Nov.
The 2nd round of the NE Challenge took place on Sunday 27 April 2008 in good conditions; broken cloud with sunny spells - not a drop of rain in sight - and the match started with a fairly gentle north easterly wind that while it changed direction a couple of times during the day and did increase slightly, it did not affect the fishing.
Fish were rising as the match started and Bill Bain and Steven Corsar were both into fish with their first cast. Unfortunately for Bill, he broke his cast and had to replace it, losing valuable time while fish were rising around him. Steven meanwhile had a golden spell and hooked into 7 fish at this first peg. Others anglers were soon into fish and by the mid-way point in the morning session, the majority had weighed in their 2 fish and were in their catch and release phase. This included Pete Adam who weighed in a 6lbs 12ozs bow and reported losing an even bigger fish with his next cast.
At lunchtime a number of anglers were commenting about the number of knocks that they were getting around the loch, but they were unable to convert these into positive takes. When the match resumed, it was still in the balance and teams still had all to play for.
In the afternoon session, the wind did change to a southerly, but despite initial concerns, it did not strenghten so anglers could continue to fish the northern pegs with ease. Fish were continuing to move and they were caught right up to the end. When the returns were being handed it, it was clear that it was going to be a tight match.
With the counting complete, it was a win for Bill Bain Fishers with a total bag weight of 26 fish for 64lbs 7 ozs, closely followed by Colin's Dumplings with 24 fish for 60lbs 5 ozs. In 3rd place were the Gordon Fly Fishers, followed by the MacDuff Marauders and finally Kintore Angling Club.
Jim Adie, Dave Taylor and Jimmy Rennie all tied for the best individual bag with each catching 12, but Jim Adie took the 1st place on weight, followed by Dave Taylor and Jimmy Rennie; the top 3 were separate by just 6 ozs.
So, after the 2nd round, the table is as follows:
The match statistics showed that 100 fish were caught for a combined weight of 262 lbs 3 ozs. The 3rd round of the NE Challenge is on Sunday 25 May 2008.
Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill: Consultation Paper and Draft Regulatory Impact Assessment Have you heard of the above Bill? Well, if not, you are one among many and to quote from the introduction: The challenge facing us is to develop fishing for salmon and freshwater fish in Scotland. However, as with the development of any business, a plan is needed. It is essential that steps be taken to ensure that fisheries are developed in such a way as to ensure their sustainability. We want to make sure that future generations of Scots and visitors to Scotland will continue to be able to access and enjoy their fishing. The plan will involve a combination of approaches, including establishment of management structures, the development of codes of best practice, and legislation to underpin these measures where appropriate. Among matters that it is considering is the future management structure of Scottish fishing and the prospect of introducing a rod licence in Scotland. A forum has been created for anglers to voice their feelings on this matter and it can be found at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Fisheries/Salmon-Trout-Coarse/FFF/Intro and follow the link to the "discussion" at the left hand side of the page.
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