Dinnet & Fiordland Fly Fishing Blog: Dinnet beats update

The final week of May started with promising conditions with river heights at 6" and 53 degrees still holding some peat stain from a wee rise on Sunday Charles Hill and party began full of optimism. Andrew Markland set the ball rolling with a cracking 12lb salmon from Logie Pool taken right in the tail from the north bank on a home tied tiny size 14 dee sheep. By Tuesday the river continued to drop down to 1" but the peat stain became more concentrated and even with great efforts we failed to continue catching. Wednesday bought another rise of water peaking at 11" and temperatures rising to 57 degrees which appeared to bring in a run of fish. By mid week Charles Hill landed a stunning 11lb salmon in the evening in Logie, Andrew winkled another from Red Brae of 5lb and I was lucky to get a 12lber from Pol Slachd in the evening. Wendy and David had a great first three days of the week although fish less it was a pleasure to teach them fly casting and fishing and watch them progress and learn throughout there time here. Nigel Lammas caught a very fresh springer from Logie on the Thursday morning and Andrew caught the first salmon of the season from the Glide.

Charles Hill's daughters shared a rod for the later three days with dad and took to Flyfishing extremely well casting fantastic loops and showing lots of enthusiasm. Jenny hooked her first ever salmon in red brae from the north bank on the Thursday all on her own the fish proceeded to fight diligently and amongst all the slippy wading and acrobatic fighting it managed to drop off, next time I feel the fish won't be so lucky.

Friday proved to be a better fishing day sitting at 5" and a much better colour to the river we managed another 4 salmon including a lovely fish from the glide from the north bank caught by Robert Markland.

Throughout the week there were occasional sea trout caught totaling 5. Successful flies were dee sheep, willie guns, cascades and mini collie dogs in fast pools like Trochie. It certainly was not a prolific week for May but our rods diligently fished hard and finished with a respectable tally.

Next week was our best week of the season last year so it will be interesting to see what happens this season.