It’s been quite a challenging season – we had a few nice fish in late June and early July, but since then it’s been quite hard work. August was down a fair bit on most recent years, partly down to lack of water and warm sunny weather for much of the month. Warm humid conditions when we did get water also seemed to keep fish off the take. It is also fair to say that the grilse run appears to have been fairly modest this year. September saw more rain and hence higher water than in recent years, and this was reflected to some extent in better catches.
At times, the river has been lightly fished too, and when a number of rods have been on, this hasn’t generally coincided with good conditions. The autumn run seems to have reduced significantly in recent years, and the fish caught recently have generally been well coloured, indicating that they probably ran the river in June/July. However, we have had a fair number of pretty large fish this season, of which more to come in another post……