[Stevie Rennie]

I just read of the international competition being hosted on the river don yesterday and as well as Scotland winning gold, it seems Wales encountered some Don gold too 

A 73cm monster estimated at 10lb

[Sandy Nelson]

Aye pity being an international doesn’t mean you know how to handle a fish.
Daytime Water temp of 21deg and air temp of 24, no wonder it looks half dead, let’s just hope it survives. There are a lot that aren’t making it just now.

[Stevie Rennie]

In agreement there Sandy, far from ideal conditions to be handling, measuring, weighing, photos etc.

Hopefully it was given plenty recovery time and is now on the mend 

[Sandy Nelson]

Here’s hoping  she will be a fair age too at that size so a bit of a double whammy. Cracking fish though and nice to hear Scotland did well, even if I’m not into competition fishing.

[Gavin Stevenson]

The catch returns were impressive think 236 fish, at this time of year I would normally with late evening so it certainly highlights that the fish are feeding day long. Any idea what the predominant methods used

[Duncan McRae]

Water height minus two at Parkhill.
Should the competition have gone ahead??

Duncan

[James Laraway]

I'd suspect they were Czech nymphing as I think that's probably all they do in competitions ...

[Sandy Nelson]

Water height minus two at Parkhill.
Should the competition have gone ahead??

IMHO I agree Duncan. However I can see it takes a lot of organisation to do these events so perhaps they should at least have made it an evening session when the air temp and water surface was a bit cooler. At least the lower river has a bit more depth and more cooler water than the upper river which is looking lower than I’ve seen in a long time. Picking a better month for it might help too.

I would imagine in these conditions the guys were fishing very small nymphs and spiders euro style in the heads of the runs where the fast shallow water is a bit cooler and has more oxygen. It works fine during the day over the summer when the conditions are better. The fish won’t ignore a wee snack drifting past their nose even when they aren’t really feeding. The nymphs are moving all day.

[Steven Kidd]

Fishing and Competition indeed...

Go crack on and have it at Lochter, but not on the river is my view.

Steven

[James Laraway]

That must be one of the biggest Don brownies caught on fly? What's the biggest people have heard of?

[Sandy Nelson]

73cm is about 29” so based on the fish I’ve caught in the condition observed , I would have estimated it at around 8.5lb maybe 9 at a push.
I know someone else who had caught that fish a few weeks ago and he had estimated it at around 8+.
I know of quite a few 28/29” fish that have been caught in the last few year on dries, nymphs and streamers. Not heard of any 30” or bigger but I’m sure there will be a couple in there somewhere.