Monday 12 June 2017

Strangely slow fishing

I was really expecting a great day yesterday with new teams putting in the hard graft at all three camps. Here at Kitza everyone fished hard for only 3 fish and quite a number lost. I spent the afternoon with Ian W who is salmon fishing again for the first time after 20 years. After a short brush up session on his left handed single spey he landed a nice fish on Third Island and then lost a second bigger fish at the net on Second Island.

Ian W's first day back to Salmon fishing after 20 years
Pana caught 2 fresh fish of about 7lbs just above camp today but the river below camp was remarkably quiet. The team at Pana are in many cases very experienced on the river so they will work hard to find the fish as they start to reach this delightful tributary.

Into a fish at Pana
Middle caught 22 fish with Yury D the top rod and some convincing efforts from first time visitors Karen C and Kevin C in Clarks and Generator. Toby gave some casting lessons today so hopefully this will pay dividends in the coming days.

12th June and still the river is in the withies
Walking down to Spey Bank yesterday morning it was really starting to green up with the birch leaves beginning to unfurl and a number of new shoots seem to have blossomed. We still have a water temperature of 6 degrees but the water height is somewhere between 5 and 6 inches meaning a number of different spots are starting to open back up to wading and with luck we will find them holding fish over the next few days.

Dropping at last on the Kitza gauge
Just as things start to feel right we seem to be thrown a curve ball but certainly conditions are improving minute by minute and if we had converted a few more of the lost fish we’d have had a good result. This morning is overcast but not too cold so hopefully this will be a more encouraging day.


Jack Selby