Dinnet beats update - Things are looking up

The first week of May should be a very good time to salmon fish here at Dinnet. Last weeks river conditions were acceptable with heights ranging between 10" and 1'4" and temperatures 52 degrees and above the majority of the beat fished well throughout the week. We started off to a slightly slower start with only three Springers landed by Wednesday but a wee rise in water on the Wednesday night certainly brought some fish into the beat. Thursday our rods landed 8 fish with catches on every beat it was encouraging to see the fish spread out throughout the beat. By Saturday evening we finished with a respectable 18 salmon landed for the beat.

Michael Trafford landed a 16lb fish from the tail of Bruich which was the first for the pool this season. Mark Beaty also broke the duck for Pol Slachd and we proceeded to catch some more from this pool. Even with the river rising and dropping during the week fish continued to take small flies on floating lines and it is always a pleasure to fish in this way and often even see the take on the surface. Successful patterns were the Crathie Fly, Stoats Tail, Silver Stoats, Dee Sheep in sizes 9 to 11, Waddingtons, and Black and Yellow tubes all fished on floating lines.

Evening fishing has also been successful with several fish this week taken in the last hour of daylight. It is always important to rest your evening pools and last week beginning your cast at around 9pm was about perfectly timed. There have been some sea trout catches further down river this week and I would expect to start seeing some sea trout on the beat in the next week or so.

Tight Lines

Mark Beaty's lovely fish from Logie

Fish On

Anticipation