[Mike Barrio]

I am not going to copy over lots of material from the old forum, just a few pieces that I do not want to lose and a good number of photos.

Please feel free to copy over any posts that you would like to too.

Here are a couple of Richard's reports about their visits to the River Don    

RIVER DON FISHING TRIP ( Posted by "Ricardo in April 2005 )
Just thought I would tell you how we got on with our 3 day trip onto the Don to fish for Brown Trout. First of all many thanks to Sandy and the others (esp Sandy) for keeping me up to date on river levels. A certain hotel proprietor kept on giving us inaccurate information about river levels which is a shame for him as he is potentially turning away business when the river is absolutely fine!!

We arrived on Thursday 14th April, river was a good height, there was a slight breeze and we started fishing at appx 11:30. At appx 12pm olives started hatching and the fish keyed onto them. Paul and I crossed the river to reach a rising fish and we saw the remnants of another rise appx 10yds away-it only looked a 'normal' fish so I told Paul to go for it. He cast his paradun and a big head poked out. A few minutes later I landed a 24.5" Brownie for him which weighed 5lb 8 oz. Moral of the story-never assume a fish on the Don is not a biggie unless you specifically see it.

This was truly a fantastic day and I ended it at 5:45 pm with the last one of 19" and 2.5lb. In all we caught 27 fish between 3 of us and the notable ones were the 2 above plus a 22" fish (4lb 8 oz), a 20" fish (3lb 4oz), 19.5" fish (2lb 12oz). All were caught on dries.

Accuracy was important as usual and  changing the angle of delivery sometimes meant the difference between success and failure.

I also lost 2 fish estimated at over 3lbs and Paul lost one similar fish. Tippets used were 5x Frog Hair which was 5lb to ensure that no trophys were lost through being broken. Leaders were appx 14' to deal with the deceptively convoluted currents.

Friday 15th was a horror with a biting North-Easterly, rain and hail which was very uncomfortable to say the least. I sat it out awaiting any hatch. We caught 24 fish but mostly small except for one I landed which was 18" and 2lb 8 oz. Paul and I saw a very large hatch of LDO and only some of the fish responded-we caught them on Paraduns. John fished a different section and saw a good March Brown hatch at 3pm and did well fishing a team of 3 March Brown spiders-he saw few LDO and we saw hardly any March Browns further down-strange.

Yesterday was wonderfully mild with little or no breeze. We thought we were in for a bonanza! It actually was very poor and the few olives which did hatch were more or less ignored. We covered maybe 2 miles of river scanning all the time for any rises but saw hardly any. Total for the day between the 3 of us was 11 fish, none above 1lb 4oz.

All in all a truly fantastic trip with the first day one that we will not forget. We cannot wait to return-in 2 weeks time, yeeeheeee!!:|    

From what we have seen of the Don over the last 3 years we can see it is an unbelievably rich river. You only have to see the waving beds of Ranunculus and pull up a handful to see that! The hatches are superb. Yes it can be moody and difficult but that makes the good days even better. Wading can be difficult and dangerous-the smooth appearance of some stretches belies the power of the current!! For those wanting guaranteed sport look elsewhere. The trout are stunning, fight harder than any we have caught elsewhere and also grow to a size that you usually only read about in 'destination' holidays.

We believe that the big fish are present throughout the system (even up at Strathdon she is a fertile river) and we are looking forward to exploring some of the other stretches!

Ricardo    

 

(below- Richard with a Don Brown of 2 lb 8 oz )



(below- Paul with a brown of 3 lb 4 oz )



(below- Paul with the brown of 3 lb 4 oz )


(All the others below are of Paul with the cracking fish of 5 lb 8 oz)

[Mike Barrio]

SECOND RIVER DON FISHING TRIP ( Posted by "Ricardo" in MAY 2005 )

After our previous trip in April we could hardly wait for the next visit to the Don and so it was that Paul Procter and I travelled the 300+ miles North to hopefully locate and capture some big trout.

Our first day was spent on the Forbes Arms water at Alford.we elected to fish the lower beat which I guess is slightly short of a mile of water.The day was windy (S-E) but this was not too bad but it was punctuated by some very heavy downpoars.Paul quickly got into a fish he saw rise once which ignoired his spiders and then took a Klink, charged across the river,jumped and threw the hook-he was really annoyed as he reckons it was in the region of 3lb.Large Dark Olives started hatching at midday and we picked up a few average fish before spotting what appeared to be a good fish rising some distance off in a strong smooth current in a pool with a nice hut on the opposite side.Paul executed a long accurate cast and the paradun landed a foot or so upstream from the fish which took the fly.This fought very strongly and when landed and weighed went 20" and 2lb 15oz-a cracking fish.We then went upstream and took turns to target fish-I got one of 17" 1lb 15.5oz and Paul got one of 16" 1lb 9oz before returning to the pool where Paul had the bigger fish.I then caught another of 18" 2lb 2oz from here.Paul lost a fish estimated again close to 3lb.In all we caught 13 fish and felt we had done well all things considered.We walked back and forwards along the beat looking for rising fish,always keeping mobile-this is effective but also very tiring!!

The next day was spent at Monymusk in which was perfect conditions-warm,good cloud cover,little breeze.Olive Uprights started coming off at appx 10:30am and we caught a few fish but were anxious not to go too mad as we wanted to target the better fish.These never showed as the hatch never really got going.Again we did a lot of walking (and grumbling!).Paul got the only noteable fish(we class this as starting at 17" and 2lb at this time of year) which he saw rise 5yds from the bank,cast over it and was rewarded with a 19" 2lb 9oz fis-superb and a real beauty as you can see from the shots.We were constantly surprised at how close we could approach feeding fish without putting them off and put this down to the strength of the current,depth and turbulence even in the 'smooth' water.We ended the day with 18  fish.

The last day was a bit like the previous i.e.promised a lot but never really got going.We caught 7 fish with the best a fraction under 16".There was a good fall of Black Gnats all day.I was just about to cover a very good fish at about 3pm which I had seen rise to these Black Gnats every 3-4 mins when the heavens opened and rain absolutely lashed down for 20 mins.The river coloured very quickly off the road and tributaries and that was that which was a shame as we both felt that given a couple of more hours it could have turned into a good day.

We went home very tired but are already wondering whether we can get one more trip in before the end of May.We have truly been smitten by the Don- although she is a difficult and unpredictable river she is also without peer in these Isles as far as we are concerned,

Ricardo