The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
TAY CATCHES DESPITE SCORCHING WEATHER
Conditions last week were again difficult on the Tay with scorching weather, high water temperatures and no rain.
Salmon have been caught throughout the system encouraging everyone despite the high temperatures.
Early mornings, when the river is at its coolest, or evenings are the best options.
The upper reaches are now struggling with the upper river registering two salmon last week from Upper Kinnaird.
The Tummel system had been fishing very well but the bright weather and low water has stopped that and no fish were taken.
Salmon are still running through the dam in numbers, with more than 4,200 through the ladder, a good increase on last year. On the middle river, 20 salmon were caught last week and it continues to fish reasonably well despite things falling off a bit.
Conditions have become increasingly difficult. However, the beats are reporting seeing several salmon in the pools but bright conditions and falling river levels are not helping.
A little water should spice things up again but early mornings and evenings remain productive.
On Dalguise Adam Joseph caught a 9lb salmon in the Bridge pool. On Dunkeld there was a first ever salmon for Tom Clode, a fresh 4lb grilse on the fly from the Back of the Island stream.
On Newtyle John Laybourn caught his first Tay fish in the Boil on the fly. John also had another of similar size in the tail of the Cotter shortly after.
Owen McGuiness landed a 10lb fish on an evening ticket, also from the tail of the Cotter.
John Wood landed a fly-caught 4lb grilse from the Steps on Thursday and beat regular Allan Rennie landed a fly-caught 3lb grilse from St Mary’s on Monday.
Matthew Peckford and Garry McLellan both lost four fish between them at the beginning of the week.
It was a fairly productive week for the beat considering the conditions.
The Murthly beats continue to do reasonably well despite the low water.
On Kercock, Henry Champion, an American visitor from Colorado on his first time salmon fishing, caught a 3lb grilse.
Several other grilse were also reported running through the beat at times, which was encouraging, but unfortunately not playing ball with the anglers.
The lower river had 32 salmon for the week.
Islamouth was again successful but under the normal expectations for the time of year and conditions.
Ballathie and Cargill have started to do much better as the river levels drop, which is expected for the beats in the current conditions with deeper gorge-like pools.
Ballathie had an excellent week landing 12 salmon up to 21lb and losing several others.
George Lamberti caught two salmon from the Bridge stream on the fly, John Harrison caught a cracking 21lb salmon and Basil Kinch had a good week.
Any salmon that are running the lower river are going straight to Ballathie and showing little sign of stopping lower down as the catches reflect.
The Isla registered no salmon.
It was certainly a much harder week with some trying conditions but still a few fish were caught.
The river must hope for some cooler weather and some rain with lower river levels to encourage salmon to run over the coming weeks and spread throughout the entire system.