[Sandy Nelson]

Had a wee wander down my new local today, can't wait to to take the walk with a 2wt next season.

[Fred Hay]

Looks quite challenging and will test your casting - better  tie up a few more flies as that trees are going to claim a few ......

[Eddie Sinclair]

Sandy,

There are more open parts further upstream but all of it holds trout. Look forward to a wee recce with you.

Eddie

[Steven Sinclair]

Glad to see that you found your way to "the witchies".

There and Jamiesons farm (the next section upstream) is where I cut my teeth fishing solo without my old man as I grew up in forest Park. I've had trout of over 1lb from the pools in your 2 last pics posted. The 2nd to last picture is "the witchies" pool itself but forget trying to fish that in nice weather as that's where all the kids go jumping in.

There was a trout of over 3lb taken from underneath the farmers bridge on the next section up and it also gets a small run of grilse that nobody fishes for anymore to the best of my knowledge.

The Carron is imo the much better of the two for browns, the Cowie being better for tourists.

 

Steven.

[Sandy Nelson]

I was surprised by how deep that pool looked. not what I was expecting at all. I wouldn't think any tourists have gone up the carron this year, with the water deviation
for the flood scheme. Some really interesting features and I saw a few wee fish too, while I was plodging around in my wellies.
I'll have to come explore the Bervie too. Next wander will be along the Cowie to see what its like

Sandy

[Steven Sinclair]

Sandy,

The Cowie is a far more productive river over all and it has some properly deep holes (I'll let senior show you the secret one that he had dug out years back 😜). Through ury estate is the best of the fishing imo. What we used to do back when I fished it was to fish in pairs, park one car up at the inkbottle bridge and then drive the other down stream to mineralwell and pool hop each other until you got back to the first car. That way you cover an awful lot of water and don't have to walk all the way back again 👍

Now the bervie is another beast altogether. It astonishes me the number of fish that sit off the foreshore early on (I highly doubt they are all destined to run the bervie) but I've seen fish come in from march onwards with every half decent spate. I walk my dog over the two bridges at bervie numerous times per day and also stop for a look over and there's usually a fish or two there for the length of the season. Getting them to take can be a whole other story but it's nice to know that they are there 👍 I plan to have the bervie ac, arbuthnot stretch and Laurencekirk ac tickets next season which will cover almost the entirety of the river for £100. I've had seatrout to 6 1/4lb and salmon to a smidgen over 13 in the past couple of years. Ot really is a hidden wee gem imo and I never saw another angler other than thr one day a dad was out with his two young kids spinning in the estuary and whilst I doubt they had permits I didn't have the heart to tell him no as they really weren't doing any harm where they were and the last thing I wanted to do was put wee ones off of fishing...

Cheers,

Steven.