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Post by salmonshrimp on Mar 8, 2010 20:59:56 GMT
Digital cameras don't pick up colours very well and tend to fill in with whatever is the nearest primary or predominant colour. My theory is if the light conditions are bad and obvious contrast is low a brown jacket gives a brownish fish blue jacket gives a blueish fish green jacket a greenish fish. Of course I could be miles away. I think we can't shouldn't really judge a fish on it's digital picture colours I might go along with that if I was seeing any evidence of colour distortion anywhere else in the picture, and I'm not. It may be both fish are slightly coloured from having run the river a few weeks or longer ago. That said, the colour and the shape don't say "springer" to me. Look at the Islamouth fish on Tay thread, or even the Dee fish earlier in the thread, and you'll see the difference. I wouldn't want to make a decision based solely on a photo, and there may be a better photo that would dispel the doubts that have been expressed. Colour distortion IMO is only on and because of the shiny and wet skin of the fish. You will note that I made no opinion on the fish in the pictures ....
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Post by fishdee on Mar 15, 2010 12:39:20 GMT
Recent CatchesThis was a frustrating week for anglers on Deeside with rivers rising and falling and then increasing significantly at the end of the week putting the brakes on catches. FishDee beats reported 51 salmon and 2 sea trout for the week with Park, Invery and Middle Drum taking the top 3 spots for catches. Catches were reported from Ardoe at the bottom of the river to Craigendinnie and Birse. Shane Christie from Middle Drum reported that John Buchan had fish to 15 lbs on an ice maiden tube fly and Stan Crook had fish on his own tied Dozem pattern. They are regular visitors to the beat from England and know the water well. Shane reported seeing a few fish throughout the week and commented that 2 of the fish were sea liced however there do appear to be fish hanging around and not in any hurry to move upriver. It’s a pity that there were not as many rods fishing on the lower beats as no doubt Altries and Kingcaussie would be doing very well. If you haven’t fished these beats then they are worth visiting at this time of year as they should hold stocks of fresh fish given the cold prevailing water conditions. Keith Cromar from Park reported that David Parkin and Ian Scruton had 2 fish each and that Phil Burn, Bill Gracie and Tony Black had fish too. It was interesting to hear that Bill Gracie had his fish on a size 6 dressed fly fished on a floater with 10 foot sink tip. Reid Hagelin reported that anglers fishing the beats he books had fish to 16 lbs with Hasse and Jan taking honours for heaviest fish and most fish. Invery had a productive week with regular Dee visitor Jim Fisher scoring again and Thursday saw really good sport with 7 fish reported for the day so well done to Ghillie Jim Turnbull and his anglers for doing well. I would be grateful if anglers would forward pictures of their catches for FishDee and remind anglers that there is a fish of the month award from Whyte and Mackay for heaviest fish of the month so please report your catches to me if you think they may be in with a chance of winning. You can write to me as always at ken@riverdee.org where I will endeavour to report any catches, stories and anecdotes. There are rods available over the next few weeks on the river due to the cold winter so please take advantage of the rods available and come and fish the River Dee. As always tight lines to all anglers fishing this week. Ken Reid © FishDee Ltd, March 2010 ProspectsThe river gauges as I write are showing heights from 2ft 1 inch at Mar Lodge to 4ft 11 inches at Park with all the tributaries running high with snow melt and rainfall from a heavy fall last night. I am pleased to hear of catches this morning from a few beats up to Dinnet. The river temperature is around 2 degrees Celsius which is cold and it is hoped it will rise to 5-6 degrees by the end of the week and really get the fish on the move. We all hope to see a good run of new fish coming into the river and fingers crossed this happens this week. The maritime influence shows spring tides rising to 4.2 metres on Wednesday falling back to 3.9 metres on Sunday. Hopefully high river levels and Spring tides will trigger some real action throughout the catchment albeit I expect the lower beats will do well if they have enough anglers out fishing. The weather forecast looks reasonable with air temperature maxima forecast at 10 degrees Celsius and minima of 0 degrees Celsius over night at the early part of the week. A series of weather fronts are forecast which will bring frequent rain shower and gusty winds at times with heavy rain forecast for Friday. The wind direction is predominately westerly or south westerly which may result in continued snow melt and high river levels with the skies frequently overcast. All in all the conditions look quite reasonable for a week’s spring fishing and fingers crossed the river levels will not get too high. It’s been a trying time for our Ghillies of late trying their best to help anglers succeed in difficult conditions and I would urge anglers to remain positive and listen carefully to the advice they provide. They are experts on their beats and will give you the best advice they can to help you catch a prized Dee Springer. If you are not fishing this week with a Ghillie then you may be faced with a dilemma of fly fishing or spinning due to high river levels. If you are fishing fly then a good sunk line will probably need to be utilised, perhaps an s2/s3 or s3/s4 shooting head or Skagit line with T14/t17 tip, depending on the beat fished. Fish a good strong leader as there may be some big new fish arriving, with a bright tube fly such as the Cascade or Park Shrimp, Ice Maiden and always have a go with the gold bodied Willie Gunn it usually does well for Springers. If you choose to spin and the beat rules permit this then perhaps a Blair’s spoon, Yellow belly Devon minnow or Gold Toby fished as deep as possible may come up trumps for you. Remember the River Dee conservation code is in place and please ensure you give the fly a really good try before spinning a pool. Why not celebrate your catch with a fine Dalmore Dee Dram as this fine single malt whisky is currently available throughout the valley in George Strachan’s stores, as well as the Kincardine O’Neil Post Office and the Stag Hotel in Banchory to buy. More and more of the local hotels and bars are supporting this conservation fundraising initiative for the River Dee Trust so please pop into a local pub if you are out and about and meet the friendly people of Deeside who are delighted to see visitors in the valley. Can you please write to me with news of your catches as news has been thin on the ground so far this season to ken@riverdee.org There are rods available over the next few weeks on the river due to the cold winter so please take advantage of the many rods available and come and fish the River Dee I am hopeful sport will really start to take off and would like to hear of your angling successes. Ken Reid © FishDee Ltd, March 2010 to obtain Dee Dram go to www.deedram.com
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Post by salmostalker on Mar 15, 2010 13:01:43 GMT
Ken, it would've been unthinkable for you to talk about spinning in any of your reports/prospects a couple of years ago, indeed it is only this year on my couple of trips north that i've realised that you actually could fish anything other than the fly. The option has obviously always been there but the need to publicise it has not. In light of the way the Dee has been marketed over the last few years is it a case of desperate times call for desperate measures (not a swipe at spinning)?
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Post by greenbanks on Mar 15, 2010 13:55:50 GMT
Nothing sinister to report Steve just a case of hedging bets given the forecast and probability of really high water all week. The River Dee conservation code highlights whats permissable etc. There are beats that actively spin in the spring in the Banchory area and below. Given the conditions its worth encouraging people to hedge their bets if they enjoy spinning as an option. You know in the good old days bait was very successful on the river and the bulk of the catches on some beats was on Spinner until May.
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Post by salmostalker on Mar 15, 2010 14:03:14 GMT
I'll be about next Wednesday and Thursday, feel free to drop off a couple of hats for underghillie and stinger. ;D ;D
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Post by underghillie on Mar 15, 2010 18:44:34 GMT
I'm still waiting on a green cap as i have enough of the black ones ;D ;D
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Post by fishdee on Mar 22, 2010 16:19:11 GMT
Recent CatchesI was concerned last week that we may see high water levels and my fears were realised. The River levels were high for most of the week with snowmelt which peaked at Park at 10 ft on Thursday. Catches were reasonable when anglers had reasonable levels and 43 fish were reported on the Tuesday and Wednesday and there were another 13 fish reported over the other days of the week which shows how fickle sport can be when conditions are against the fisherman. It was pleasing to hear that lower beats were starting to see fish and given the river levels I was not surprised to see Lower Crathes and Upper Durris reporting the highest catches for the week closely followed by Park. These beats I think of as barometer beats in the Spring which normally see reasonable catches if the fish are there in any numbers. I received an e mail from Mark Bird who was fishing with colleagues at Park who commented ‘As promised a couple of photos from our trip to Park. Richard Miller landed the cream of the crop, a beautiful 20lber out of the Durris, David Saunders with a 12lber from the Cellar and myself with a bonnie 7lber also from the Cellar. We had to be away sharp at 5pm on the Wednesday to catch our flights and at 4.45 I hooked a cracker in the high teens at Park Inn. After 10 minutes hard fight I was getting a bit concerned about the time and applied a bit too much pressure and unfortunately the leader went and my prize slipped away a few feet from the shore. Many thanks to Keith Cromar and Paul in the house, who made our trip to Park so memorable.’ The 20lb fish that Richard Miller caught is on the FishDee website and is his first Dee Salmon. Richard Miller with a beautiful 20 lb Springer-his first Dee salmonVisiting Scandinavian anglers were made welcome on their annual pilgrimage to Deeside and the group fishing with Reid Hagelin reported 22 for their visit last week. With a visitor from Denmark landing a 20 lb fish from Carlogie and I hope to receive details and images this week of this fish. As always the group finished their week with successful anglers receiving prizes from Reid Hagelin. It has been a tough 3 weeks for Reid Hagelins group as the conditions have been very much against them, but that is salmon fishing. There are no guarantees for sport which is why the Spring salmon is so highly prized by all anglers. Can you please write to me with news of your catches as news has been thin on the ground so far this season to ken@riverdee.org There are rods available over the next few weeks on the river due to the cold winter so please take advantage of the many rods available and come and fish the River Dee I am hopeful sport will really start to take off and would like to hear of your angling successes. Ken Reid © FishDee Ltd, March 2010 ProspectsAs I speculated last week and suggested that if river levels don’t get too high then we would see good sport then I shall suggest the same this week. As I write this report the river heights on the Sepa gauges are from 1ft 1 inch to 2 ft 8 inches which is an ideal fishing height. I walked some of the riverside yesterday and saw the river running high and clear so I am optimistic about sport this week. If all goes to plan we should have the best weeks sport of the season. There is no doubt that there are fish moving through the beats as anglers have reported this to me. We should see the bulk of the sport in the lower and middle river beats but there will be fish spread out the length of the river. I expect the top spring beats to do well and fingers crossed for all the Ghillies who have been patiently waiting an improvement in river conditions. Talking about Ghillies then it is important to heed their wise advise about methods and tactics when visiting your beat. Our Dee Ghillies know the moods of the river intimately and are usually able to provide the best advice as to what to use and where you may encounter your prized Dee Springer. If you don’t have the services of a Ghillie to call on then you should persevere with sinking lines, shortish leaders and tube flies of 1-3 inches. Patterns of choice may include the Gold Willie Gunn, Posh Tosh, Eternal optimist and variants of the Monkey fly. If fish are seen running then perhaps a Sunray Shadow fished close to the surface may provide some sport. The weather forecast for the week looks reasonable and provided we don’t get too much rain and snow melt then the river should fish well all week. There is rain forecast for the later part of the week which could put the brakes on sport if it is too heavy. Air temperature maxima will be in the 10-12 degrees Celsius range and overnight lows will reach -1 degrees Celsius. The winds may be a feature this week with winds forecast to gust quite strongly at times and shifting from a southerly direction to an easterly one. The maritime influence sees tides rising from 3.7 metres to 4.2 metres and this may encourage Springer’s to come pouring in from the sea. One of our respected river Ghillies suggested a few weeks ago to me that this week should be really good so I am sure he will as always provide solid advice. Can you please write to me with news of your catches as news has been thin on the ground so far this season to ken@riverdee.org There are rods available over the next few weeks on the river due to the cold winter so please take advantage of the many rods available and come and fish the River Dee I am hopeful sport will really start to take off and would like to hear of your angling successes. Ken Reid © FishDee Ltd, March 2010
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Post by greenbanks on Mar 22, 2010 22:54:29 GMT
Another nice salmon caught today by Norwegian angler Geir Spitten at Park.
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Post by hazeldub on Mar 23, 2010 13:15:18 GMT
Lovely Fish....
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Post by scotty9nro on Mar 23, 2010 19:16:37 GMT
Another nice salmon caught today by Norwegian angler Geir Spitten at Park. Cracker of a fish
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Post by greenbanks on Mar 24, 2010 10:14:16 GMT
Both Sean Stanton at Ballogie and Keith Cromar have reported seeing really big fish in the 30 pound plus range on their beats. Lets hope someone connects with one of these and wins fish of the month prize.
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Post by greenbanks on Mar 24, 2010 18:44:32 GMT
Both Sean Stanton at Ballogie and Keith Cromar have reported seeing really big fish in the 30 pound plus range on their beats. Lets hope someone connects with one of these and wins fish of the month prize. What a shame that a fish estimated at 30 lbs plus was lost today at Park. Jim Coates made a valiant attempt to retain the Park trophy for biggest Dee fish for 2010. He played the lunker for 20 minutes and despite the fish jumping and coming close to the waiting ghillie the fish moved strongly off and made a frantic downstream run of 300 yards-how disheartening to have this happen after a 20 minute scrap. Sadly the fish came unstuck and the reality of the loss took hold for Jim. He did catch a 10 lb fish earlier but it will not seem like compensation following this loss.
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Post by hazeldub on Mar 25, 2010 13:24:19 GMT
Unlucky Jim - My heart goes out to you. That must have been so painful.
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Post by greenbanks on Mar 26, 2010 18:04:57 GMT
Hi Ken, Photo's of a beautiful Dee springer caught this morning at Park . The angler is local man Mr Ken Rothwell from Peterculter, it was his third cast of the day when the fish took his fly, it was "The Dee Fox" invented and tied by local fly tyer Phil Glendenning. Caught on the Jetties at the top of beat 5. The fish weighed in at 26lb. Having seen some big fish this week it was nice for someone to hook into a big fella. Regards,Keith.
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Post by macd on Mar 26, 2010 19:33:30 GMT
oh aye!!
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