[Iain Goolager]

Squeezed in 3 hours today on the Don.

Water is still up (to a nice fly fishing height) and coloured.

Fortunately I didn't catch a fresh fish, I say fortunately because when I hooked into a fish I reached for my camera only to discover that the battery was back at home in the charger!

Valuable lesson learned.

Nice to fool a Salmon even though it turned out to be a kelt.

It made me realise how naked I feel when fishing anywhere for anything without my camera.

Roll on a decent run of fresh fish.

Iain

[Ben Dixon]

Will be throwing a line at Kintore on Monday too, if anyone fancies a cast, give me a shout.

Cheers

Ben

[Dave Mundie]

Every time i remember to take the camera i always blank 

Dave

[rattrala]

Fresh fish were being caught below Kintore on Friday and noticed the water is up and slightly coloured again. Sunday @2pm.

[Ben Dixon]

Fished 10 - 4 today along most of the left bank, did not see or contact anything despite the water being in good shape.  Had a few rattles to my tube but I am pretty sure they were trout.  Wind made it a bit unpleasant but it gave me a good look at the water, was at about 0.5M on the council gauges.  Where does the beat tend to fish well at that height?  And which bank do those of you who fish it regularly tend to fish?

Cheers

Ben

[Iain Goolager]

Ben,

A feature of the openness of Kintore is the 'switchability' of the wind which often has me using all the casts I have in my armoury (however poorly executed).

As I never seem to get a full days fishing nowadays I usually end up picking two or three of my more confident spots and fishing them thoroughly but here's a list of the places I've contacted fish with the fly (fresh and Kelts).

From the Top
1) Broads - Fresh fish last year and kelt last week - I prefer fishing from the LH Bank
2) Topstream - I always fish through this pool - never had a fish here but like the water. I almost had the rod pulled from my hand here three years ago at the tail end, but no hook up. Also I was fishing here another tail end day when a Salmon of about 16 lb came up from the depths looked at me and dissappeared again!
3) Millstream - Good fish holding water - had a fat Grilse here a few years ago on a size 10 Teal, Yellow and Silver.
4) Highbanks - no fish from here but again I like the water from LH bank.
5) Dykes or Neck of Bend - lost a nice fresh fish here last year, always worth a throw.
6) below the rapids, below the Boat Hole - 1 Kelt from here - I always give it a throw
7) Simpsons - 3 Kelts from here - difficult to fish the fly here for mortals - should be a breeze for you but now I've cracked it.

There are many other locations where Kelts and Fresh fish are seen every year but I find these hard to fish the fly due to speed of flow, depth, etc.

Hope this is of interest.

Iain

[Ben Dixon]

Cheers Iain,

Will get the map out and have a look.  Didnt realise quite how much water there was there, the river must flow about a mile between 2 points only two hundred yards apart!  The wind was nothing less than brutal, had to resort to overheading a type 4 sink head to get a line out, must be very deep as I only lost one fly on the bottom!  Was a nice height and the fly was fishing nicely, only a few places where I had to work the fly by stripping.  Could not really get a look at the bottom anywhere, is any of it wadable?

Ben

[Iain Goolager]

Ben,

of the places I've mentioned I'd fish from the bank on mostly all of the locations, due to either the water being too deep, dangerous or the negligible advantage of wading.

Exceptions are;

LH Bank 'Highbanks'
RH Bank 'Millstream' (forgot to mention I prefer the LH Bank)
Below the rapids, below the Boat Hole - Can only fish RH Bank
Simpsons can and has been waded - due to inability to cast with the trees and vegitation behind (not anymore!)

Obviously wading is dependant on river heights but there are lots of deep pots and I feel safer on the bank although the twistiness of the river and bankside vegetation can bring out some right hybrid snake roll -underhand-single spey type monstrosities of casts.......oh well.

Iain

[Duncan McRae]

Hi Ben

I'm not used to metric river level guages but i think that 0.5m converts to 1foot 8 inches.
At this level i would choose to fish from the Broads down to the Top stream i.e the top of the beat downwards on the left hand bank.
Unfortunately the farmer has decided to dump boulders on the river bank path along the best part of this stretch which makes the fishing difficult to say the least.
If the guage is giving a correct reading(i'm not convinced) then i would suggest that Kintore is a bit on the high side and that any fish will be running straight through.
If you have a roving ticket then the top half of the Inverurie beat would give you a far better chance of catching a springer.

Regards
Duncan
 

[gibbyboy]

never fished the kintore water but been spending some time on inverurie this season, agree that the top end would provide a good chance of a fish....have seen a few large fresh fish alongside the numerous kelts here....(especially in the boat pool when levels are down)

[Duncan McRae]

Gibbyboy

Yes,the Boat pool is a real hot spot for kelts but you will often take a springer from the midst of them.
It's amazing how long the kelts will hang around in that pool.I've seen them splashing around there as late as mid May!

Have you had any success with the springers at Inverurie?

Duncan

[gibbyboy]

absolutely, some of the bigger fish from what i have seen anyway like to lurk around there.......with the up stream wind that has been on the go the last few times ive been down it can be hard to get a fly swimming around that slow water though....

no springers yet.....lost a large fish a couple of weeks back, caught a kelt of about 7.5/8 lb and a wee trout.....other than that just half harted takes.....all on the Black and Yellow....

who knows what saturday might bring....