[allabootthetroot]

Cracking day at Moonhaugh and Bandley, i will try and do a decent post on it at a later date when i have time as it is a fine wee stretch of water and the banks are well maintained.

[allabootthetroot]

So last day of the troot season ended up really interesting trying to figure out if i had 1,2,or 3 brownies . it turns out to be just the one and 2 stale Sea trout.  Still a great day  tho  and all fish quickly back in the water and released.
I also lost a really good one on a czech nymph which i tend to flatten the barbs on.

moonhaugh and bandley  is a really good small beat with easy parking and a wee stroll to the bank if you have a 4x4 you could park next to the water depending what the farmer has in the fields.

Any way i guess that is the trouting over for this season  ??? ???.

[Graham Nicol]

Well i came up for my annual back end 3 day stint and in summary was difficult and disappointing.
Day 1 at Bandley which in the past has been very good to me. There are some super holding pools and generally one sees quite a few fish moving in these. On Monday i never saw a fish all day but i did eke out a small coloured grilse on a size 12 red allys and had another knock. Lots of trout rising and some good ones at that. The water was extremely low and crystal clear and what with wall to wall sunshine getting anything has to be viewed as something of a bonus. However, it was very apparent the stock of fish was extremely low.
Day 2 was Monymusk beat 3 and again conditions were as at Bandley and thus hard work from the start. However, the lower part of the beat is shade by trees and a hill and thus by lunch time with a low sun a few of the runs were in the shade an lo and behold a few fish moved and i caught another small grilse on a size 12 red francis from the lowest pool slatestone. Highlight of the day though was watching an otter appear in front of me of which i think i may have successfully photographed (need to blow picture up to check!). Lovely beat but again feeling is sock of fish were way below normal for this time of year.
Day 3 yesterday was Kildrummy and the morning had some cloud cover which helped but absolutely nothing to show for my efforts. I am sure that if i had been prepared to fish spot i just may have been able to sight some fish in the lower pools for every stone was visible and as there was no ripple on the surface nymphing may have been the answer.
Thus in total 2 small fish in 3 days is so so but as generally i tend to be more fortunate i put part of it down to conditions and poor stocks. What did surprise me was that i didn't aggravate any fish as i went through the pools where in the past i would have seen fish splash and even chase my flies.
I can only hope next year sees an improvement in fish levels.
Tight lines all
G

[allabootthetroot]

Aye it is a gamble booking a fishing trip in advance and getting low water and tricky conditions.
I was surprised at the sea trout I would have expected them to ignore any flies passing there nose. But I also so fished monymusk last week on beat 7 for trout and hooked and landed a salmon on a wee silver butcher with 4lb line.

And I see in the trout and salmon a fella got one on a dry fly lol weird or what.  I also got all that fish on the silver butcher so I guess I will have to reconsider my low water salmon tactic

I also like Kildrummy and it  has some great pools as dose semeil fishing further up.

Hopefully you will get better conditions next time ST