2018 season
The 2018 season started out very well. The lower beats initially seeing some fantastic sport. An example was Gledfield catching 23 for a week to their 2 rods. We at Braelangwell caught 30 for April with an average weight of a fraction over 9lb. As May came in the water started dropping off but we still managed 23 for the month. What seemed to be missing was the big multi sea winter fish that would normally come in May but I’ll come back to that.
The biggest fish of the spring was a fine 16lber to Cisa Grey caught from the Washerwoman in April.
The Carron below the Morail falls caught over 230 springers to the end of April (Just over 6 miles) and there were some caught above showing that not everywhere was suffering from lack of fish. The spokesmen for the big rivers were saying that the fishing was a disaster in Scotland which was really hacking off to us above Inverness as there was some really good sport to be had.
Like pretty much everyone else we suffered from very low water for June, July and August and we only caught 25 salmon for this period. A lot of experienced people were comparing this summer to 1976 but from our fishing book they had an odd rise back then and as many fish were caught for July 76 alone. The highest water temperature recorded at Braelangwell was 73.4f.
We finally saw the weather break in September but the water didn’t really cool down until the week of the 10th when it hit 50f which seems to turn the fish back on. We ended the month with 61 salmon and grilse. The biggest to Stewart Walker at 20lb from Gruinards run.
We ended our season with 88 salmon and 53 grilse out of that only one salmon was killed because it could not be revived.
Going back to the May fish, Due to the low water it seems that a good number of fish made their way over the Glencalvie falls. Looking into the gorge in the low water you could clearly see good big salmon in the pools so it seems the big multi sea fish were there they just went through. The head keeper at Alladale also confirmed this by letting us know that he is seeing more fish up there than he has seen for years.
