[Mike Barrio]

Hi folks

Not so many anglers on the water this week. I guess that with the colder weather conditions ............. sitting in front of a warm fire with a good fishing book, or your fly tying gear perhaps and a fine dram of whisky would probably appeal to a good number of you, it would certainly appeal to me!  

Sunday saw the loch frozen over for the first time this year with just a small area clear in front of the hut, but this disappeared overnight with the wind and rain and the loch was totally clear again this morning, proving good news for Lloyd Rattray who tempted 10 fish up to 5 lb.

My trout are "earning their keep" well and providing good sport, popping their heads up every now and then to boost your confidence and even willing to chase bright "seasonal" flies. Damsels, black fritz, black cats, white cats, bloodworm, montana and buzzers have been the most productive flies this week and a "pink dancer" tickled their fancy too. David Brown released his best fish of the season on a pheasant tail nymph, a beautiful brownie of approx 2½ lb.

Rod Mackay and Andrew McGinn took to the float tubes this week, but Andrew quickly realised that his breathable waders were not offering much in the way of warmth, so they "abandoned ships" and went out in a boat. This proved to be a wise decision as Andrew landed a cracking rainbow of approx 13 lb which might have been a tad tricky from the tube!

Gordon Marshall also tempted a nice rainbow trout of approx 12 lb, one of 8 for his session, Ian Knox enjoyed a good morning netting 20 fish and keeping 2 for 8 lb 1 oz and his boat partner Colin McDonald was also pleased with his 10 fish up to 5 lb. Neil Garden caught 11 fish averaging approx 3 lb in windy conditions ........... Here we go again ...... no, I've gotta stop!  :

Writing fishing reports is probably the most difficult job that a fishery owner or manager has to do    You can't get away from the fact that reports are "competitive" between fisheries and we all end up writing about the anglers that catch fish in large numbers or the anglers that catch a big fish  : because we know that some anglers read the reports and then decide to go and fish at whichever fishery appears to be "fishing best"
The problem that I have with this ......... is that it makes the fishing look way too easy and it raises expectations far too high, which leads to disappointment!

Not everybody can catch 10 to 30 fish at a trout fishery, if you read all the reports on a regular basis you will soon realise that the same names turn up time and time again, as it does take a bit of skill to catch that many    

It would probably be far more realistic to report that most anglers caught around 2 to 5 fish, then visitors would perhaps be happy when they caught 3 or 4, rather than disappointed that they didn't catch 10 to 30  :
  There has got to be another way of doing this ....... Sorry folks, rant over!

Let's get back to this week's report

It is always great to see junior anglers doing well and this week it was Lewis Calderbank's turn. Lewis caught 5 fish on the day, keeping the 5 lb rainbow in the photos below and a lovely 4 lb blue. Well done Lewis!

The Haddo Winter League started this month and is progressing nicely with plenty of room for more anglers to take part if they wish. It is a friendly competition and fun to take part in, so please feel free to give me a phone on 07810 868897 for more information if you fancy joining in.

Best wishes
Mike