Dinnet Update end of March

Well last week proved to be a challenging week for much of the River as the river remained in flood for most of the week. Running over 3' on the Dinnet gauge until Saturday meant our rods were mainly restricted to fishing the Boat Pool. Fortunately even with strong downstream winds blowing all week our capable rods managed to land 5 spring salmon up to 13lbs. Saturday saw a dropping river falling from 2' throughout the day where we had some interesting sport in the Haugh pool landing one and hooking and loosing two in the afternoon. All the fish that were hooked were mainly in the tail of pools which indicates that they were running fish. Successful fly patterns were Monkey flies in large sizes mainly.

With a falling river and some frosts forecast for next week I expect we will be at a perfect fishing height for the beat early next week. Lets hope these floods bring some fresh fish up from the middle river where many fish still seam to be holding.

We must be mad!!

Phillip Wood fighting tough conditions in March @ Dinnet.

Update

Last week proved to be a slightly more difficult week. Water temperatures ranged from 38 to 44 degrees which is encouraging for the upper river this time of year, however the river was up and down frequently throughout the week. Sitting around the 2' mark limited the best fishing from Dinnet bank but Deecastle managed 2 fresh fish of 9lb landed by John Carmichael and an 8lb fish for Colin Espie. Dropping down to 1'3" midweek many more pools were fishing well and first time salmon fisher Pierre Woodford caught his first ever salmon from Logie pool at Dinnet. This weeks rods also took Cambus o May beat and landed three upto 14lb so in all a respectable result for the party. 

Successful flies have been black and yellow copper tubes willie gun wadding tons and of course monkey flies fished deep in big waters. 

Pierre's first salmon definately got the bug!!

Opening week

Well the new salmon fishing season is underway here at Dinnet on the Aberdeenshire Dee. Opening day greeted us with favourable conditions with the river running at a medium height and at 38 degrees we thought the chance of success would be high. Saturday the 1st of March, opening day resulted in no elusive springers and with recent continual rises in water throughout the winter most of the kelts have been washed down stream. Into the first full week fishing started off slow with similar medium water heights between 1'5" and 2' and temperatures hovering around the 40 mark. Conditions  still favourable Deecastle landed it's first springer on Wednesday from 29 pool at 10lb caught by Martin Risberg a visiting angler from Sweden. Thursday saw a rise in water in the early hours of the morning with slightly warmer water we got off to a good start with two springers and a kelt on the bank by 11am and another of a similar size before lunch, both again to Martin.  Friday we saw a considerable rise running at 3'5" for most of the day and a fresh springer was caught a by a happy angler along with some other kelts. Tactics in the current conditions are fishing sinking lines either intermediate lines with sink tips or slightly heavier sinking lines with monkeys, black and yellows and willie guns being successful patterns..