[Sandy Nelson]

 

Great photos.

Sandy

[Richard Tong]

Hi All,

Been ages  since I fished Don, for one reason or another. Any reports on Monymusk and upstream on hatches etc?

Richard

[Sandy Nelson]

Hi richard

Not been that far upriver yet this year, but from what I hear its a similar story to the middle bits.
Lots of olive uprights and grannoms hatching during the day and the fish are feeding on them .
Plenty black gnats and brook duns too. Some folk have had fish with black gnat imitations so plenty to choose from.
Still some smaller olives coming off too and the lower river is seeing an afternoon hatch of yellow mays.
Have yet to venture out after teatime so not sure about evening time but some if the risers I've seen have still been going at 6 unless I've managed to spook them one way or another
Most fish seem to be nymphing on emergers.
You should have a good trip

Sandy

[Sandy Nelson]

Today was perfect and a lovely day to be on the river.

Much the same as my last report, except i found a few that were feeding on Hawthorns falling out of a tree as well as the nympher's who liked the DHE.

Got snapped today on 6lb tippet, first time this year may have been a nice a fish

Otherwise more good average fish, the water is clearer today and it seemed to make them a bit more fussy



Looking forward to the evenings beginning, but the daytime hatches are ace

Sandy

[Scott Cumming]

Had a look down at the river late afternoon. Plenty of fly life and a few trout moving but they were playing hard to get... eventually got hold of a decent trout which fell to an emerging caddis.

Scott C

[Eddie Sinclair]

Nice troot, well done.

Eddie.

[Mike Barrio]

Great stuff .... and cracking photos

Cheers
Mike

[Liam Stephen]

Nice fish Scott 

Your going to need to tell me where the big are... 

Liam

[Jonathan Kerr]

you guys are killing me here!

I've just sat down in the office to work and seeing all these quality photos and good fish is extremely distracting!!!

loving the photos just now, nice angles and heads etc.

keep it up!

 

 

[Sandy Nelson]

 

[Mike Barrio]

Cracking day to be on the water

[Campbell S]

Thanks for the welcome Marc, glad the pics were well received. Seriously memorable trip, I have plans to come back later in the season. Just need to get on the Clyde and see how she's doing now.

Cheers,

Campbell

[Rob Brownfield]

Managed out at 5.30am on friday morning after an airport run. The river looked stunning with a plume of mist rising off the surface.

Once the sun had warmed the air the river was alive with tiny, 2-3mm long (body) black things, with the odd Grannom hatching, but very few fish moving.

Of the fish I did see, most were tiny, so i put on a couple of heavy nymphs and went searching. 3 lost fish later I was back on the bank swearing! i have lost so many fish this season!

Anyway, with the time now about 6.30 I headed down stream to an area that was a little more sheltered from the wind that had picked up. Here I found two fish feeding sporadically.

On with a size 14 DHE and at last i was rewarded woth 2 fish. Nothing big, but welcome none the less. After that, the wind got stronger so i moved onto Czech Nymphing but with no luck, so headed home for a sleep.

[Rob Brownfield]

Oh, ps, when I walked back to the car is was covered in Hawthorn flies. Worth tying up a few i think.
pps. The #4 olive SLX was a dream to use again, allowing me to cover the two fish in a way I could not have with a DT.

[Mike Barrio]

The #4 olive SLX was a dream to use again, allowing me to cover the two fish in a way I could not have with a DT.

Great stuff

[Sandy Nelson]

 

[Liam Stephen]

I walked back along the river at around 6.30am today (don't ask) and was surprised to see fish rising, some good fish at that. Some sort of small spinners were in the air along with clouds of tiny black stuff. I may head out early tomorrow for a go at them. It must be getting close to evening fishing time?? 

Liam

[Sandy Nelson]

Stole a couple of sneaky hours down the river on my way home from work.

Beautiful night , not much happening BUT.............

Woohoo, got my 3rd, 4lbr of the season However..............

It was a grilse, 4.5lbs and a bar of silver, i had thought it was a big brownie as it was in my favourite spot and was picking off flies quite steadily, took a few attempts but eventually he came up for a size 14 DHE. Quite a surprise when he went airborn and was sparkling in the sunlight Great fight on the Epic, unfortunatley i have no photo's Thats a whole other story

So does it still count as a springer either way its my first fresh fish of the season, very welcome on an afternoon where very little was happening, maybe we are in transition to evenings, will have to go out tomorrow to prove the theory

Sandy

[Rob Brownfield]

Well done Sandy!

Salmon on a dry is the way forward

[Ewan Lindsay]

Was out on middle Don today from midday till 1600hrs. A good hatch of small olives underway when I got there and managed several 1/2 to 3/4 lbs-ers but nothing significant.  Water was clear and weather very pleasant but nothing, other than a couple of oncers, decent moving. Lots of daddy long legs about too and a  hatch of hawthorns at 1500hrs. Left too try and "beat" the traffic back into ABZ at 1600 (Failed miserably!) as all fish went down.

Being a fan of the chalk streams I can say there were no Mayflies this afternoon...! 

Ewan

[Allan Liddle]

Yea there was wee Blue Wing Olives...
No Danica were spotted you mean 

[Ewan Lindsay]

'Twas a Danica-free zone...

Ewan

[Sandy Nelson]

After a week of penance I Stole a sneaky few hours after work today.
twas quite chilly, but there was a healthy hatch of what i believe are Small dark olives.

I caught a few, this is a male and a female, not a great photo, but the light wasn't good and my wee camera likes light for close ups.



Its quite confusing because the males eyes are the colour of a pale watery, as are the wing colour on both, the hind wings look more like pale wateries too, in terms of shape

A closer look at the female shows the hindwing, but it has the eye colour of the small dark olive as well as the body colour.
The tails are indicitive of the small dark as well.



What i can tell you, is the Sand martins were feeding on them and i found a nice group of trout feeding on them too, some nice ones in amongst them as well. I spent 2 hours trying to fool one that looked rather special, but i got fed up chasing it as it came up to look at a 14 DHE but then declined to play.

I eventually ended up on a pale coloured size 16 SHE and picked up a couple of the risers, one of them pushed 16" so about
1.75lb, bonny fish, i even managed to unhook it without dropping the net this time



Hard work, but nicely rewarded even though i did get side tracked chasing the bigger one. I didn't see any fish rising anywhere else apart from one short stretch and as i say there were loads of Small dark olives hatching and they were very pale as they emerged.

Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

Lovely evening to be on the river tonight and with Colin and Sandy for good company too





and I caught some of these



Cheers
Mike

[Sandy Nelson]

It was a lovely evening to spend on the water with good company.
Good idea Colin

Still looks a little early for evenings yet, we hung around in perfect condition right into dark and didn't really see any of the bigger boys moving.
Lots of smaller stuff rising all evening, but nothing more than 1/2-3/4lbs.

Plenty Sedges of all sizes, some small dark olives a sparse hatch of yellow mays and much later some bigger olives, but i couldn't see what they were (other than being about a size12).
No obvious BWO hatch yet, so probably why there wasn't much activity from the bigger ones.

the water was very warm as well, almost like a tepid bath, would have been very nice for wet wading

I see the forecast is for a few days of showers, a bit of fresh water might make a big difference

Sandy