News: Sunday June 13th 2010
Salmon total: 78
Ladder count: 1627
Largest salmon: 20lbs
Salmon News
Last week the conditions on all our beats were good, although the rivers had fallen back to close to summer level by the end of the week. A total of 15 salmon and 2 sea trout were caught. All the fish were fresh run with some sea liced. As they were actively chasing flies and lures, some were lightly hooked and quite a few fish were lost. There were several small fish among the salmon catches reported to us but these were believed to be small salmon, rather than grilse and indeed there are reports of these small salmon as well as ones of the more usual 12 to 17 lb at this time of year on other rivers too. Nonetheless, a few grilse are now making their appearance (see also Trout News below). These seem to be small, 2-4 lb. On Monday, three salmon were caught on Pitlochry Portnacraig Beat, one of about 14lb on a monkey fly by Jim Kennedy, one of about 12lb on cascade fly by Tony Brown of Edinburgh, and one of about 12 lb on flying C by Pat Phelan of Edinburgh. All three fish were off the Pitlochry bank. A further two salmon were caught on Ruan Ruarie at Soldier’s Leap by Stuart Norris, one of about 12 lb and the other a small fish of only about 5lb. On Tuesday, both Ken Scott and his friend lost salmon on Pitlochry Portnacraig Beat, and Ken Scott had a sea trout of about 3lb on a monkey fly. On Ruan Ruarie, John Hammerman had a salmon of about 12lb on fly at the tail of the Viaduct Pool, having lost another fish earlier in the day and Mike Ross lost a fish as he was about to net it on the Grilse Pool, apparently as his leader must have snagged one the sharp rocks close to the edge of this pool. On Wednesday, Donnie Whiteford caught two salmon on Pitlochry Portnacraig Beat, one of about 12lb off the Pitlochry bank and one of about 6lb off the Portnacraig bank and on Ruan Ruarie Beat, Raymond Leary caught two small salmon on the Viaduct Pool. One was on Flying C and the other on zebra toby. On Thursday, Scott Ferguson caught a salmon of 5 or 6lb and Donnie Whiteford caught a sea trout of about 3½ lb on Pitlochry Portnacraig Beat off the Pitlochry bank on a Park shrimp fly. Up on Ruan Ruarie, Scott Henderson caught a sea liced salmon of 7 lb on zebra toby on the grilse pool. On Friday, Jim Kennedy had a nice fish of about 17lb on Pitlochry Portnacraig Beat on shrimp fly and lost another fish of similar size, both off the Pitlochry bank and Donnie Whiteford had a small salmon of about 6 lbs. A 12lbs salmon was also taken on Lower Tummel on Saturday by David Olds.
It is hoped that the good sport will continue in the coming week. We have vacancies on all beats, including the very nice Lower Tummel Beat, which we have until the end of August.
We have come to the end of our “fly only” period on Pitlochry Portnacraig Beat and spinning is allowed. Anglers are asked to be considerate of other anglers on the opposite bank particularly during low flow conditions as the fishable water is much reduced then and competition for the best spots is inevitable.
Donnie Whiteford with a fine 3.5lbs seatrout off Pitlochry bank
Ticket outlets; Fishtay and Pitlochry Tourist Information Centre Tel no. 01796472215
Trout News
The river trout fishing has been good recently, both during the day and in the evening with some good trout of up to 2.5lb being reported. Yesterday, Arbroath Angling Club was out on the Tummel. They were having some good sport through the day and were hoping for a good evening. One of the them, Scott Reith, had caught a nice grilse of about 2½ lb which had been safely retuned to the water. We are hoping to get photos of it being released.
Ian Beckett, the Club’s loch warden, reports that both Loch Bhac and Loch Kinardochy are fishing well, and this can be clearly seen in the catch returns we have been receiving recently, which show good numbers of rainbow trout of about 1½ lb being caught on Loch Bhac and good catches of brown trout on Loch Kinardochy, mainly of about ¾ lb in weight but with individual fish of up to about 2 lb. Ian reports that top of the water tactics are doing well on both lochs, as are rainbow trout methods on Loch Bhac.