Week Commencing 8th April 2013
Last week temperatures remained low and the wicked east wind which has blown for all the season continued to make some pools seem dead. Out of the wind in the sunshine it could be quite pleasant and I noticed some huge March Brown hatches, by the end of the week the trout were starting to feed ravenously.
March Brown
The Osprey who has been back a number of weeks was joined by the Sand Martins that by my reckoning are about a fortnight late, the daffodils are almost out and the willows are in bud. Today the temperature rose by at least 10 c, coupled with some rain and a strong southerly wind; the snow is melting fast and the river is big and dirty, I fear there will not be much fishing tomorrow though hopefully the rest of the week will be good. The tides have peaked today and there will be no new water all week.
Catches: Continue to be patchy; the Gordon Castle Beats are still doing well, with twenty five for the week. Again I have no report from Orton. At Delfur my party had an enjoyable week, eventually just getting into double figures a selection of photos showing the good looking fish and the gillies!
Mark Collie
Grant Sourden
Davie Beaufort
Grant Collie
Upstream things were tougher; Rothes started well but quickly fell away. I heard that Delagyle had a fish. Carron had five, with co owner Jimmy Jack landing three. Upstream Knockando had their first on their first let week. I heard the beats above the Avon had half a dozen. Grantown continued to pick away with a 12 pounder caught by local member, John Mallin, in Tarric Mor yesterday afternoon. I predict that this rise in the water will have a few more caught at Grantown.
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Beautiful fish…well done.
My concern agaim, though, is how many are being released this time of year. I know we encourage it but do we track the numbers kept/released? The Devron has an incentive scheme that seems to help. What do you think?
Hi Chris,
As I had the figures at my disposal Malcolm asked me to reply to your query. C&R has been widely adopted on the Spey in the last decade. In 2002 only 30% of the fish were released (largely coloured fish I suspect) but in 2003 the release rate increased to 69% following the introduction of the conservation policy. Since 2003 the proportion released has increased steadily with 85% released during the course of the 2012 season. The exploitation of the spring stock was slightly higher with 84% released to the end of May 2012, the actual figure for spring fish killed being over 200 before the end of May. As a high proportion of the early fish are females the Spey Fishery Board strengthened the wording in the 2013 Conservation Policy to reinforce the need to return all spring fish if possible.
The policy is not monitored “real time” but the expectation is that the revised policy will deliver higher return rates. With the continuing fragile state of the early running fish conservation is of the utmost importance.
Brian Shaw
Well done Malcolm on Delfur.I am off to the Tweed this Wednesday and now fear the rain !
What a lotery !
Olivier